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How to teach writing to Grade 1 kids: New strategies for teachers and parents

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Education, Western University

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Writing is a craft that is vital for both communicating and learning . However, many children struggle to learn to write. For most, their difficulties persist throughout elementary school unless they get help. As recently as 2018, there was very little research on how to teach Grade 1s effectively .

However, recent research shows how teachers can help Grade 1s make a strong start on writing. Parents have a vital role to play in laying a foundation for early writing success.

Many parents have likely heard children say, “I don’t know what to write.” Teaching children strategies for writing tackles this problem head-on.

Breaking writing down into steps

In 2019, a team of Spanish and British researchers published one of the first experiments on teaching writing strategies in Grade 1 . They explored how a child can learn to write a story by asking themselves a series of questions: When did it happen? Where did it happen? Who is the story about? What did they do? What happened? How did it end? These questions help the child to generate and organize their ideas.

To help children remember this writing strategy, teachers in the study used a picture of a mountain with a path that led past six houses — one for each question. The teachers discussed the strategy, modelled how to use it and wrote together with the class. After instruction, the children wrote stories that were higher in quality, longer and more coherent.

Strategies work

The value of teaching writing strategies in Grade 1 has been confirmed by additional studies that examine teaching specific kinds of writing: Procedural writing (instructions for someone on how to do something) , and opinion writing (short essays meant to persuade someone of something) . In this writing research, teachers combined strategy instruction with discussions, picture books and dramatization.

And in our own recent research, we found that strategy instruction is effective for Grade 1 students across the range of writing achievement levels: low, medium and high . These Grade 1 studies join over 100 previous studies with students in higher grades in showing that teaching writing strategies works .

A father sits wtih daughter who is writing at a desk.

Printing, handwriting, spelling

Recent research also provides renewed support for the seemingly old-fashioned skill of printing. Grade 1s who can print accurately and quickly are able to create better and longer stories and reports . Teaching printing helps students to create better stories . Despite over 70 previous studies on the benefits of teaching printing and cursive writing , systematic teaching and assessment of these skills has declined in some curricula.

Read more: Writing and reading starts with children's hands-on play

Spelling is another traditional skill, the importance of which has been confirmed by recent research. Better spellers create better and longer stories, while poor spellers struggle with composing , and Grade 1 spelling affects the development of composition in later years.

Spelling education works best if it is formal, including, for example, lessons and practice activities . Additionally, teaching writing strategies combined with spelling and printing is more effective than teaching each of these skills alone .

Parents can help children practice spelling at home. Teachers and parents can also show children the “invented spelling” strategy of saying a word slowly, stretching out the sounds, and printing a letter (or letter combinations, such as “th”) for each sound. This will lead to some errors, but in kindergarten and Grade 1, invented spelling is an important driver of spelling development .

New understanding of Grade 1

This new understanding of the importance of Grade 1 is beginning to change writing education . In the past, many schools in Canada and the United States waited for struggling readers and writers to reach the middle elementary grades . Then, they were assessed by a school psychologist. If they were diagnosed with a learning disability, they were placed in a special education class.

However, in a new approach, response to intervention, teachers use evidence-based methods (like strategy instruction) to teach the whole class. They assess students regularly based on their daily writing, and if a child is below grade level, they receive help in a small group .

This approach is not yet common. However, it is almost certainly coming to some provinces in reading education . Reading education and writing education are intertwined, so we can expect the same approach to follow in writing.

Laying the foundations

The foundation for writing success is ideally being supported at home before children start kindergarten.

Parents can ask children to tell them stories, print the stories for them, then read them aloud for the child. They can teach children simple skills like forming letters and printing their name.

Parents can also practice printing with children at home; this is especially valuable for struggling writers . They can help children to write things that are important to them, like birthday cards for family members .

Read more: To help children learn how to read in the pandemic, encourage writing messages as part of play

Parents can also encourage children to read and write independently . Once children begin to write, parents can be their best audience, praising their efforts and the good qualities of their writing, and making suggestions to help with ideas, printing, and spelling .

When children begin school, and into Grade 1, parents can watch for red flags in their child’s writing development. During Grade 1, the average student learns to print the letters of the alphabet legibly and fluently, spell one syllable words the way that they sound (cat, game) and spell common short words that are not spelled the way that they sound (you, they). They also learn to write a story a few sentences in length about a personal experience .

If your child is missing these basic skills, don’t wait and see — talk with your child’s teacher and make a plan to help them succeed.

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How to Teach Creative Writing | 7 Steps to Get Students Wordsmithing

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

“I don’t have any ideas!”

“I can’t think of anything!”

While we see creative writing as a world of limitless imagination, our students often see an overwhelming desert of “no idea.”

But when you teach creative writing effectively, you’ll notice that  every  student is brimming over with ideas that just have to get out.

So what does teaching creative writing effectively look like?

We’ve outlined a  seven-step method  that will  scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process  from idea generation through to final edits.

7. Create inspiring and original prompts

Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired:

  • personal memories (“Write about a person who taught you an important lesson”)
  • imaginative scenarios
  • prompts based on a familiar mentor text (e.g. “Write an alternative ending to your favorite book”). These are especially useful for giving struggling students an easy starting point.
  • lead-in sentences (“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”).
  • fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive (“Who do you think lives in this mountain cabin? Tell their story”).

student writing prompts for kids

Don’t have the time or stuck for ideas? Check out our list of 100 student writing prompts

6. unpack the prompts together.

Explicitly teach your students how to dig deeper into the prompt for engaging and original ideas.

Probing questions are an effective strategy for digging into a prompt. Take this one for example:

“I looked in the mirror and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Somehow overnight I…”

Ask “What questions need answering here?” The first thing students will want to know is:

What happened overnight?

No doubt they’ll be able to come up with plenty of zany answers to that question, but there’s another one they could ask to make things much more interesting:

Who might “I” be?

In this way, you subtly push students to go beyond the obvious and into more original and thoughtful territory. It’s even more useful with a deep prompt:

“Write a story where the main character starts to question something they’ve always believed.”

Here students could ask:

  • What sorts of beliefs do people take for granted?
  • What might make us question those beliefs?
  • What happens when we question something we’ve always thought is true?
  • How do we feel when we discover that something isn’t true?

Try splitting students into groups, having each group come up with probing questions for a prompt, and then discussing potential “answers” to these questions as a class.

The most important lesson at this point should be that good ideas take time to generate. So don’t rush this step!

5. Warm-up for writing

A quick warm-up activity will:

  • allow students to see what their discussed ideas look like on paper
  • help fix the “I don’t know how to start” problem
  • warm up writing muscles quite literally (especially important for young learners who are still developing handwriting and fine motor skills).

Freewriting  is a particularly effective warm-up. Give students 5–10 minutes to “dump” all their ideas for a prompt onto the page for without worrying about structure, spelling, or grammar.

After about five minutes you’ll notice them starting to get into the groove, and when you call time, they’ll have a better idea of what captures their interest.

Did you know? The Story Factory in Reading Eggs allows your students to write and publish their own storybooks using an easy step-by-step guide.

The Story factory in Reading Eggs

4. Start planning

Now it’s time for students to piece all these raw ideas together and generate a plan. This will synthesize disjointed ideas and give them a roadmap for the writing process.

Note:  at this stage your strong writers might be more than ready to get started on a creative piece. If so, let them go for it – use planning for students who are still puzzling things out.

Here are four ideas for planning:

Graphic organisers

A graphic organiser will allow your students to plan out the overall structure of their writing. They’re also particularly useful in “chunking” the writing process, so students don’t see it as one big wall of text.

Storyboards and illustrations

These will engage your artistically-minded students and give greater depth to settings and characters. Just make sure that drawing doesn’t overshadow the writing process.

Voice recordings

If you have students who are hesitant to commit words to paper, tell them to think out loud and record it on their device. Often they’ll be surprised at how well their spoken words translate to the page.

Write a blurb

This takes a bit more explicit teaching, but it gets students to concisely summarize all their main ideas (without giving away spoilers). Look at some blurbs on the back of published books before getting them to write their own. Afterward they could test it out on a friend – based on the blurb, would they borrow it from the library?

3. Produce rough drafts

Warmed up and with a plan at the ready, your students are now ready to start wordsmithing. But before they start on a draft, remind them of what a draft is supposed to be:

  • a work in progress.

Remind them that  if they wait for the perfect words to come, they’ll end up with blank pages .

Instead, it’s time to take some writing risks and get messy. Encourage this by:

  • demonstrating the writing process to students yourself
  • taking the focus off spelling and grammar (during the drafting stage)
  • providing meaningful and in-depth feedback (using words, not ticks!).

Reading Eggs Library New Books

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2. share drafts for peer feedback.

Don’t saddle yourself with 30 drafts for marking. Peer assessment is a better (and less exhausting) way to ensure everyone receives the feedback they need.

Why? Because for something as personal as creative writing, feedback often translates better when it’s in the familiar and friendly language that only a peer can produce. Looking at each other’s work will also give students more ideas about how they can improve their own.

Scaffold peer feedback to ensure it’s constructive. The following methods work well:

Student rubrics

A simple rubric allows students to deliver more in-depth feedback than “It was pretty good.” The criteria will depend on what you are ultimately looking for, but students could assess each other’s:

  • use of language.

Whatever you opt for, just make sure the language you use in the rubric is student-friendly.

Two positives and a focus area

Have students identify two things their peer did well, and one area that they could focus on further, then turn this into written feedback. Model the process for creating specific comments so you get something more constructive than “It was pretty good.” It helps to use stems such as:

I really liked this character because…

I found this idea interesting because it made me think…

I was a bit confused by…

I wonder why you… Maybe you could… instead.

1. The editing stage

Now that students have a draft and feedback, here’s where we teachers often tell them to “go over it” or “give it some final touches.”

But our students don’t always know how to edit.

Scaffold the process with questions that encourage students to think critically about their writing, such as:

  • Are there any parts that would be confusing if I wasn’t there to explain them?
  • Are there any parts that seem irrelevant to the rest?
  • Which parts am I most uncertain about?
  • Does the whole thing flow together, or are there parts that seem out of place?
  • Are there places where I could have used a better word?
  • Are there any grammatical or spelling errors I notice?

Key to this process is getting students to  read their creative writing from start to finish .

Important note:  if your students are using a word processor, show them where the spell-check is and how to use it. Sounds obvious, but in the age of autocorrect, many students simply don’t know.

A final word on teaching creative writing

Remember that the best writers write regularly.

Incorporate them into your lessons as often as possible, and soon enough, you’ll have just as much fun  marking  your students’ creative writing as they do producing it.

Need more help supporting your students’ writing?

Read up on  how to get reluctant writers writing , strategies for  supporting struggling secondary writers , or check out our huge list of writing prompts for kids .

reading-eggs-story-factory-comp-header

Watch your students get excited about writing and publishing their own storybooks in the Story Factory

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How to Teach Creative Writing

Last Updated: January 22, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 15 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 116,120 times.

Creative writing is one of the most enjoyable types of writing for students. Not only does it allow students to explore their imaginations, but it helps them to structure their ideas and produce writing that they can be proud of. However, creative writing is a relatively difficult type of writing to teach and offers challenges to both new and seasoned teachers alike. Fortunately, though, with some work of their own, teachers can better develop their own abilities to teach creative writing.

Providing Students with the Fundamentals

Step 1 Introduce the important elements of storytelling.

  • Theme. The theme of a story is its message or the main idea behind it.
  • Setting. The setting of a story is the location or time it takes place in.
  • Plot. The plot is the overall story, narrative, or sequence of events.
  • Characterization. Characterization is how a character or person in a story is explained or presented to the reader.
  • Conflict and dramatic action. Conflict and dramatic action are the main events of focus in the story. These events are often tense or exciting and are used to lure the reader in. [1] X Research source

Step 2 Encourage students to engage the reader.

  • Explain how your students, as writers, can appeal to the humanity of their readers. One great way to do this is to ask them to explore character development. By developing the characters in their story, readers will become invested in the story.
  • Discuss the triggers that engage readers in an effective story. Most great stories start with a problem, which is solved with the resolution, or conclusion of the story. Encourage students to create an engaging problem that will hook the readers in the first few pages of a short story or novel. [2] X Research source

Step 3 Explain the importance of tone and atmosphere.

  • By setting the tone and atmosphere of a story, the author will establish his or her attitude to the subject and the feel of the story.
  • Tone can be positive, neutral, or negative. [3] X Research source
  • Atmosphere can be dark, happy, or neither.
  • Descriptive words like “darkness” or “sunshine” can help set both the tone and atmosphere. [4] X Research source

Step 4 Promote the use of active verbs.

  • Active verbs are used to show action in the story.
  • Active verbs are very often a better alternative to passive voice, as it keeps your writing clear and concise for your readers. [5] X Research source
  • For example, instead of writing “The cat was chased by the dog” your student can write “The dog chased the cat.” [6] X Research source

Guiding Students through the Process

Step 1 Allow students to pick their topic.

  • Tell your students to brainstorm about ideas they are truly interested in.
  • If you must restrict the general topic, make sure that your students have a good amount of wiggle room within the broad topic of the assignment.
  • Never assign specific topics and force students to write. This will undermine the entire process. [7] X Research source

Step 2 Have your students write a flexible outline.

  • Letting your students know that the outline is non-binding. They don’t have to follow it in later steps of the writing process.
  • Telling your students that the parts of their outline should be written very generally.
  • Recommending that your students create several outlines, or outlines that go in different directions (in terms of plot and other elements of storytelling). The more avenues your students explore, the better. [8] X Research source

Step 3 Avoid teaching a story “formula.”

  • Tell students that there is no “right” way to write a story.
  • Let students know that their imaginations should guide their way.
  • Show students examples of famous writing that breaks normal patterns, like the works of E.E. Cummings, William Faulkner, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare.
  • Ask students to forget about any expectations they think you have for how a story should be written. [9] X Research source

Step 4 Provide feedback on rough drafts.

  • Gather the first drafts and comment on the student's work. For first drafts, you want to check on the overall structure of the draft, proper word use, punctuation, spelling, and overall cohesion of the piece. [10] X Research source
  • Remind them that great writers usually wrote several drafts before they were happy with their stories.
  • Avoid grading drafts for anything other than completion.

Step 5 Organize editing groups.

  • Let students pair off to edit each others' papers.
  • Have your students join groups of 3 or 4 and ask them to go edit and provide feedback on each member’s story.
  • Provide guidance so students contribute constructively to the group discussion. [11] X Research source

Step 6 Evaluate your students based on their creativity.

  • Reward your students if they are innovative or do something unique and truly creative.
  • Avoid evaluating your students based on a formula.
  • Assess and review your own standards as often as you can. Remember that the point is to encourage your students' creativity. [12] X Research source

Spurring Creativity

Step 1 Inspire students with an appreciation of literature.

  • Teach your students about a variety of writers and genres.
  • Have your students read examples of different genres.
  • Promote a discussion within your class of the importance of studying literature.
  • Ask students to consider the many ways literature improves the world and asks individuals to think about their own lives. [13] X Research source

Step 2 Provide your students with a large number of resources.

  • Make sure your room is stocked with a wide variety of fiction stories.
  • Make sure your room is stocked with plenty of paper for your students to write on.
  • Line up other writing teachers or bring in writers from the community to talk to and encourage your students.

Step 3 Have your students write practice stories based on random photos or pictures you provide.

  • Cut out pictures and photographs from magazines, comic books, and newspapers.
  • Have your students cut out photographs and pictures and contribute them to your bank.
  • Consider having your students randomly draw a given number of photos and pictures and writing a short story based on what they draw.
  • This technique can help students overcome writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [14] X Research source

Step 4 Arrange an audience.

  • Pair your students with students from another grade in your school.
  • Allow your students to write stories that younger students in your school would like to read.
  • Pair your students with another student in the class and have them evaluate each others' work. [15] X Research source

Step 5 Create a writing space.

  • If you just have a typical classroom to work with, make sure to put inspirational posters or other pictures on the walls.
  • Open any curtains so students can see outside.
  • If you have the luxury of having an extra classroom or subdividing your own classroom, create a comfortable space with a lot of inspirational visuals.
  • Writing spaces can help break writer's block and inspire students who think that they're "not creative." [16] X Research source

Step 6 Publish your students’ work.

  • Involve students in the printing process.
  • Publication does not have to be expensive or glossy.
  • Copies can be made in the school workroom if possible or each student might provide a copy for the others in the group.
  • A collection of the stories can be bound with a simple stapler or brads.
  • Seek out other opportunities for your students to publish their stories. [17] X Research source

Expert Q&A

Christopher Taylor, PhD

You Might Also Like

Teach Storytelling

  • ↑ https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/creative-writing-101
  • ↑ https://kobowritinglife.com/2012/10/14/six-tips-for-engaging-readers-within-two-seconds-the-hook-in-fiction-and-memoir/
  • ↑ https://www.dailywritingtips.com/in-writing-tone-is-the-author%E2%80%99s-attitude/
  • ↑ http://ourenglishclass.net/class-notes/writing/the-writing-process/craft/tone-and-mood/
  • ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/
  • ↑ https://archive.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922
  • ↑ http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/
  • ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/7-steps-to-creating-a-flexible-outline-for-any-story
  • ↑ http://thewritepractice.com/the-formula-to-write-a-novel/
  • ↑ https://student.unsw.edu.au/editing-your-essay
  • ↑ http://orelt.col.org/module/unit/5-promoting-creative-writing
  • ↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/grade-creative-writing-paper-3698.html
  • ↑ http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/educating-teenagers-emotions-through-literature/476790/
  • ↑ http://www.wrightingwords.com/for-teachers/5-tips-for-teaching-creative-writing/
  • ↑ http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3138

About This Article

Christopher Taylor, PhD

To teach creative writing, start by introducing your students to the core elements of storytelling, like theme, setting, and plot, while reminding them that there’s no formula for combining these elements to create a story. Additionally, explain how important it is to use tone and atmosphere, along with active verbs, to write compelling stories that come alive. When your students have chosen their topics, have them create story outlines before they begin writing. Then, read their rough drafts and provide feedback to keep them on the right path to storytelling success. For tips from our English reviewer on how to spur creativity in your students, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Language Arts Classroom

Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Week One

Week on of creative writing lesson plans: free lesson plan for creative writing. Creative writing lessons can be scaffolded.

Looking for creative writing lesson plans? I am developing creative writing lesson ideas! 

I’ve written and revamped my creative writing lesson plans and learned that the first week is vital in establishing a community of writers, in outlining expectations, and in working with a new class.

What are some good creative writing exercises?

Some good creative writing exercises include writing prompts, free writing, character development exercises, and fun writing games.

The first week, though, we establish trust—and then we begin powerful creative writing exercises to engage young writers and our community.

How can add encouragement in creative writing lesson plans?

I’ve found students are shy about writing creatively, about sharing pieces of themselves. A large part of the first week of class is setting the atmosphere, of showing everyone they are free to create. And! These concepts will apply to most writing lesson plans for secondary students.

Feel free to give me feedback and borrow all that you need! Below, find my detailed my day-by-day progression for creative writing lesson plans  for week one.

Build the community in a creative writing class. A creative writing lesson can build young writers' confidence.

Creative Writing Lesson Day One: Sharing my vision

Comfort matters for young writers. I’m not a huge “ice breaker” type of teacher—I build relationships slowly. Still, to get student writing, we must establish that everyone is safe to explore, to write, to error.

Here are some ideas.

Tone and attitude

For day one with any lesson plan for creative writing, I think it is important to set the tone, to immediately establish what I want from my creative writing students. And that is…

them not to write for me, but for them. I don’t want them writing what they think I want them to write.

Does that make sense? Limitations hurt young writers. My overall tone and attitude toward young writers is that we will work together, create and write together, provide feedback, and invest in ourselves. Older kiddos think that they must provide teachers with the “correct” writing. In such a course, restrictions and boundaries largely go out the window.

Plus, I specifically outline what I believe they can produce in a presentation to set people at ease.

The presentation covers expectations for the class. As the teacher, I am a sort of writing coach with ideas that will not work for everyone. Writers should explore different methods and realize what works for them. First, not everyone will appreciate every type of writing—which is fine. But as a writing community, we must accept that we may not be the target audience for every piece of work.

Therefore, respect is a large component of the class. Be sure to outline what interactions you find acceptable within your classroom community.

Next, as their writing coach, I plan to provide ideas and tools for use. Their job is to decide what tools work for their creative endeavors. My overall message is uplifting and encouraging.

Finally, when we finish, I share the presentation with students so they can consult it throughout the semester. The presentation works nicely for meet-the-teacher night, too!

After covering classroom procedures and rules, I show students a TED Talk. We watch The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie. My goal is to show students that I don’t have a predetermined idea concerning what they should write. This discussion takes the rest of the class period.

Establishing comfort and excitement precedents my other creative writing activities. Personalize your “vision” activities for your lessons in creative writing. Honestly, doing this pre-work builds relationships with students and creates a positive classroom atmosphere.

Activate prior knowledge when building a creative writing course. When building creative writing lesson plans, build off what students know.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Two: Activating prior knowledge

Students possess prior knowledge concerning creative writing, but they might not consider that. Students should realize that they know what constitutes a great story. They might not realize that yet. An easy lesson plan for creative writing that will pay off later is to activate prior knowledge. Brainstorm creative, memorable, unforgettable stories with students. Share your thoughts too! You will start to build relationships with students who share the same tastes as you (and those that are completely different!).

Activation activity

During this activity, I want to see how students work together, and I want to build a rapport with students. Additionally, activating prior knowledge provides a smooth transition into other creative writing activities.

This creative writing activity is simple:

I ask students to tell me memorable stories—books, play, tv shows, movies—and I write them on the board. I add and veto as appropriate. Normally doing these classroom discussions, we dive deeper into comedies and creative nonfiction. Sometimes as we work, I ask students to research certain stories and definitions. I normally take a picture of our work so that I can build creative writing lessons from students’ interests.

This takes longer than you might think, but I like that aspect. This information can help me shape my future lessons.

Creative writing lesson plans: free download for creative writing activities for your secondary writing classes. Creative writing lessons should provide a variety of writing activities.

With about twenty minutes left in class, I ask students to form small groups. I want them to derive what makes these stories memorable. Since students complete group and partner activities in this class, I also watch and see how they interact.

Students often draw conclusions about what makes a story memorable:

  • Realistic or true-to-life characters.
  • Meaningful themes.
  • Funny or sad events.

All of this information will be used later as students work on their own writing. Many times, my creative writing lessons overlap, especially concerning the feedback from young writers.

Use pictures to enhance creative writing lesson plans. With older students, they can participate in the lesson plan for creative writing.

Creative Writing Lesson Day Three: Brainstorming and a graphic organizer

From building creative writing activities and implementing them, I now realize that students think they will sit and write. Ta-da!  After all, this isn’t academic writing. Coaching creative writing students is part of the process.

Young writers must accept that a first draft is simply that, a first draft. Building a project requires thought and mistakes. (Any writing endeavor does, really.) Students hear ‘creative writing’ and they think… easy. Therefore, a first week lesson plan for creative writing should touch on what creativity is.

Really, creativity is everywhere. We complete a graphic organizer titled, “Where is Creativity?” Students brainstorm familiar areas that they may not realize have such pieces.

The ideas they compile stir all sorts of conversations:

  • Restaurants
  • Movie theaters
  • Amusement parks

By completing this graphic organizer, we discuss how creativity surrounds us, how we can incorporate different pieces in our writing, and how different areas influence our processes.

Build a community of creative writers. An impactful creative writing lesson should empower young writers.

Creative Writing Lesson, Days Four and Five: Creative Nonfiction

Students need practice writing, and they need to understand that they will not use every word they write. Cutting out lines is painful for them! Often, a lesson plan for creative writing involves providing time for meaningful writing.

For two days, we study and discuss creative nonfiction. Students start by reading an overview of creative nonfiction . (If you need mentor texts, that website has some as well.) When I have books available, I show the class examples of creative nonfiction.

We then continue through elements of a narrative . Classes are sometimes surprised that a narrative can be nonfiction.

The narrative writing is our first large project. As we continue, students are responsible for smaller projects as well. This keeps them writing most days.

Overall, my students and I work together during the first week of any creative writing class. I encourage them to write, and I cheer on their progress. My message to classes is that their writing has value, and an audience exists for their creations.

And that is my week one! The quick recap:

Week One Creative Writing Lesson Plans

Monday: Rules, procedures, TED Talk, discussion.

Tuesday: Prior knowledge—brainstorm the modeling of memorable stories. Draw conclusions about storytelling with anchor charts. Build community through common knowledge.

Wednesday: Graphic organizer.

Thursday and Friday: Creative nonfiction. Start narrative writing.

Students do well with this small assignment for the second week, and then we move to longer creative writing assignments . When classesexperience success with their first assignment, you can start constructive editing and revising with them as the class continues.

Lesson plan for creative writing: free creative writing lesson plans for week one of ELA class. Add creative writing activities to your high school language arts classes.

These creative writing activities should be easy implement and personalize for your students.

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Are you interested in more creative writing lesson ideas? My Facebook page has interactive educators who love to discuss creative writing for middle school and high school creative writing lesson plans. Join us!

Creative writing syllabus and graphic organizer

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how to teach creative writing to grade 1

How to Effectively Teach Creative Writing in Elementary

Today let’s discuss how to  effectively teach creative writing at the elementary level.  Creative writing is such an important writing skill to teach students from a young age. Young writers need to understand the concept of creative writing as using their imagination to express themselves freely through words. 

It’s not just about proper grammar and spelling  (though those are important too!) , but rather about sparking their  creativity , allowing them to dream up  unique characters , exciting adventures, and incredible worlds. By nurturing their storytelling abilities early on, we’re not just helping them become better writers, but also fostering their confidence, encouraging self-expression, and igniting a lifelong love for writing. So, let’s dive into some strategies and tips to make your creative writing lesson plans a hit in your elementary classroom!

How to effectively teach creative writing in elementary

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is essentially writing in which the author uses his or her imagination to create a story. Creative writing in simple terms refers to the process of expressing thoughts, ideas and stories in a unique and imaginative way.

It’s about letting children’s minds wander  freely,  encouraging them to use their  imagination  to create characters, settings, and plots. Creative writing isn’t just about grammar and spelling; it’s about fostering a love for storytelling, allowing kids to explore their creativity, and helping them find their voice through words on paper. It’s a journey that encourages self-expression, builds confidence, and nurtures a lifelong appreciation for writing. The whole purpose of creative writing is to think outside the box and stray from traditional structures and norms. 

Creative writing falls under one of the 5 categories of writing but it also combines a lot of these styles together:

  • Narrative Writing
  • Descriptive Writing
  • Persuasive Writing
  • Expository Writing
  • Creative Writing

Creative Writing Lesson Plans Don’t Have to Be Difficult

Finding creative ways for students to write using their imaginations doesn’t have to be difficult. No matter the grade level, creative writing lessons should offer plenty of opportunities for students to tell their point of view on a subject. Don’t let creating lesson plans for creative writing be a headache! It’s all about giving kids the chance to let loose and share their thoughts in their own special way. 

Whether they’re in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, or 5th grade, the key is to let their imagination run wild. Get them talking about what interests them, throw in some fun prompts, and watch the magic happen! Mix things up with different writing styles – stories, poems, even real-life tales. Make it a safe space where they feel free to jot down whatever comes to mind. By balancing a bit of structure with loads of creative freedom, teaching creative writing becomes a blast for both the teachers and the students!

creative writing lessons don't have to be difficult

Here’s How to Teach a Creative Writing Activity to Elementary Students:

1. start with creative writing prompts.

One of the first activities you can try is using writing prompts with students. Writing prompts are a great tool to get students’ brain juices flowing, no matter if they are elementary, middle school, or high school students! Coming up with writing topics for younger students can be especially challenging sometimes. 

Inside   the   How to Write a Paragraph Year-Long Bundle   there are specific writing prompts that are  scaffolded and differentiated  to meet  all  learner’s needs. You will find everything you need inside this resource to  help your students who struggle with writing understand how to write a paragraph  all   YEAR LONG …  trust us! It allows for easy planning for your writing lessons because it’s got different seasonal writing resources and prompts inside no matter what time of year it is. These are the perfect place to start to get your students writing based on themes. 

Once they are comfortable in this category, then it’s time to actually get them to come up with some of their own ideas to write about now   (after all that is the ENTIRE point of a creative writing lesson!)

Try with these juicy writing prompts below to help get your student’s creativity flowing if they need help coming up with a topic to write about :

  • Personal memories: “Tell about someone who taught you something really important.”
  • Imaginative scenarios: “Let’s create a wild story set in a world where anything goes!”
  • Prompts based on a familiar mentor text: “What if your favorite book ended differently? Give it a new twist!”
  • Lead-in sentences: “I saw myself in the mirror and couldn’t believe what I saw. Overnight, I…”
  • Fascinating or thought-provoking images with a directive: “Who do you think calls this log cabin home? Tell us their story and what they’re up to!”

2. Break Down the Prompts Together

Do NOT rush this next step! We need to make sure our students are coming up with unique and creative writing ideas. During this first week’s lesson plan, you want to make sure students know exactly what they are getting themselves into with the creative writing process. Make it known that these prompts above are to help guide them and their imagination. Help to break down what each prompt is asking/ looking for:

For example, if the prompt says “I saw myself in the mirror and couldn’t believe what I saw. Overnight, I…,” then what questions should the students be asking?

Hopefully, they will tell you they want to know what they look like in the mirror right now.

Then you can have students think of 5 possible situations for what happened and how they look.

3. Do a 5 Minute “Free Write Brain Dump”

During the next step of a creative writing lesson plan, encourage students to do a brain dump in their writing journals on all of their  prior knowledge  on the subject that they will be writing about. This lets you know a couple of things as the teacher: Do they have their own experience on this topic and enough background knowledge? Does the subject areas that they are free-writing about make sense for the creative writing topic? This should only take about 5 minutes and you are NOT worried about spelling or grammar during this step.

For example: if they are planning to write about the solar system but they don’t have much to say during this free write brain dump, this is where you may want to incorporate a mini lesson or guided conference with you to make sure they are picking a topic that they have a lot of background knowledge about or can at least figure out where to find the answers they might need for their writing.

The “free write brain dump” is helpful for students to see a couple of things- okay I know enough information about this topic and am ready to organize my thoughts  OR  I had a hard time just coming up with random thoughts to write about…maybe I need a need a new topic. It will truly help decide their confidence factor for this assignment.

creative writing lesson plans

4. Start Your Planning Process

The next step in your creative writing unit should be having students take their decided-upon creative writing topic and  organize  their thoughts and ideas. This step is super important because you want the information to be in the students’ own writing but you also want to make sure they have a plan for how to get their point across.  Your stronger writers may be ready to go but some may need a bit more structure set up to help them.

There are a couple of different ways they can organize their ideas:

Use Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are the perfect thing to use if students want to stick with a paragraph-type writing structure. For your lower writers, this might be the way to go because graphic organizers make planning a lot easier and the structure makes it super easy to follow. Graphic organizers also help break down the writing process into chunks so it doesn’t feel like such a difficult task to students who may struggle more with their writing skills or for  ESL students.

Character Development Worksheets

Provide worksheets that prompt students to describe the characters in detail that they want in their story. Include sections for physical appearance, personality traits, motivations, and character arcs. This helps students develop well-rounded characters before they start writing.

Peer Brainstorming

Organize small group brainstorming sessions where students can share their ideas and receive feedback from their peers. This way can totally help students polish up their ideas and come up with fresh new ones for their creative writing.

use peer writing in a creative writing lesson

Story Boarding

Encourage students to create a visual storyboard for their story. They can draw a series of pictures or scenes that outline the plot, helping them visualize the sequence of events in their narrative. We really love this idea for planning for students who are learning English as a second language and students who have more difficulties communicating their thoughts out loud.

Voice Recording

Finally, one last idea: If your students are feeling unsure about writing things down, suggest they talk it out and record their thoughts on a device such as a classroom iPad.

They might be amazed at how easily their spoken words turn into great written stuff on the page! This is another favorite of ours for those students who struggle with getting their thoughts on paper or are learning English as a second language.

During the planning phase , it is a good time to take the opportunity to do any  mini lessons  you feel needed with students on any of the skills above.

5. Write the Rough Draft

Next is taking the creative narrative and putting it into a rough draft version using their planning method. It’s time for them to start coming up with their own creative short story. Do they have a main character? Is there a problem and solution? Does the writing make sense? After the rough draft, it can be super beneficial to meet with students individually or in small groups to give feedback before they move forward on the final copy. 

Word of advice: Don’t worry about spelling or grammar too much in the rough draft phase! Just help students get their thoughts out onto paper!

6. Time To Write the Final Draft

As the creative writing journey nears its conclusion, it’s time to guide your students toward the crucial phase of crafting their final drafts. This stage marks a shift towards independent work, where students take ownership of refining their narratives. Encourage them to enrich their stories with vibrant sensory details to help bring the writing to life.

This isn’t just about polishing; it’s about infusing their words with emotions and imagination. The final draft represents all of their hard work! Make sure you help them reach their fullest potential with their creative writing and storytelling skills!

A Final Word on Teaching Creative Writing to Elementary Students

When planning your creative writing lesson plans for the school year, it’s best to think about the  overall entire writing process.  For students that you KNOW creative writing will be a challenge for, take some time during English language arts sessions and work with them on the simple structures of writing to help build their confidence. If they struggle with the mechanics and confidence to write, they honestly may not be ready for the creative writing process just yet. Use the resource below to help them refine their writing skills so that all of your students can be a confident and creative writer!

creative writing lesson plans prompts

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12 ideas for teaching creative writing

Little girl writing

Teaching creative writing to kids can be one of the most rewarding parts of teaching the English curriculum. But with so many statutory requirements to hit in a portfolio of writing, it can be difficult to capture truly creative writing as well as instil enthusiasm for the art.

Some of your class will really enjoy creative writing from scratch. For others, this will be a daunting experience. We have gathered together a collection of simple ideas for teaching creative writing to help your pupils smash writing tasks.

Creative writing tips for teachers

  • Use a workshop-style environment
  • Show your class how it’s done
  • Draw up a storyboard
  • Encourage book reading
  • Re-write a known story
  • Show, don’t tell
  • Inspire them with video
  • Deconstruct characters
  • Give your pupils freedom
  • Use story-starters and prompts
  • Elaborate with a story generator
  • Get the children to take creative writing home

1. Use a workshop-style environment

Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on. Some may look to write fiction pieces and use ideas around storytelling. Another group could focus on word games, spelling and puzzle-solving. There could even just be a group for reading stories and learning the craft!

All children are able to work in groups, but each pupil will have one-to-one time with you too. As long as assignments and tasks are rotated, children will find their favourite part and be more engaged as a result. Working this way can also lead to competitions and collaborative creative writing work.

2. Show your class how it’s done

The adage is ‘practise what you preach’. When it comes to creative writing, this means you should be showing the class what the process is.

Doing live creative writing sessions for your class can give them perspective on how to build a story effectively. More importantly, it gives them chance to see how it’s OK to make mistakes, how to take criticism and that they shouldn’t be afraid to create whatever they feel they want to. You could even get your more able (and confident!) pupils to live write on the board for the class to gather inspiration from; pupil modelling can be a really fantastic assessment for learning activity.

3. Draw up a storyboard

Some visual cues might be the key to unlocking greater creativity in your pupils. Instead of writing out a story, why not begin with a storyboard? It doesn’t need to be a work of art – simple stick people will do the job.

Once you’ve drawn out the basis of your story, you can then start to write down more detail to really flesh out their story.

4. Encourage book reading

If there is one place anyone can go to experience good storytelling, it’s in books. Reading brings a whole host of benefits to children form an educational standpoint – many of which apply to creative writing.

To increase vocabulary, improve creativity and enflame imaginations (plus a whole lot more), we should always be looking for more reading opportunities for pupils in class. Beyond the classroom, encourage them to do as much reading as possible at home too.

5. Re-write a known story

If you’re struggling for ideas, why not take inspiration from one of the countless legendary stories already out there. Give a classic story a twist and ask the class to elaborate on it:

  • Three Billy Goats Gruff are the ones under the bridge, and you’re trying to cross it
  • At the top of Jack’s Beanstalk is Mars
  • Aladdin rubs his lamp, but what are his three wishes?
  • The three bears are the ones sneaking into Goldilocks’ house

6. Show, don’t tell

It’s a tenant of good storytelling across many different mediums. The idea of show, don’t tell means the writer should avoid explaining every aspect of what a character is feeling or thinking and instead focus on different ways of revealing that information in the story.

For example, give your class some basic information like “the boy was sad”, and ask to write a sentence that would display that information more creatively. It could become, “the boy’s heart sank, his head bowed and he sniffled as the tears began to fall.”

This way, the reader is able to unravel the emotions involved in the story themselves, rather than being told.

7. Inspire them with video

YouTube is a treasure trove of learning resources and other helpful content that can boost a pupil’s creative writing capability. With a quick search, you’ll find plenty of interviews with famed writers sharing their experiences in the job.

Use these to dig a little deeper into the mind of a writer. What is there process for coming up with ideas? What are the challenges they face? This type of content can provide key takeaways that pupils can bring into their next creative writing task.

8. Deconstruct characters

A simple but effective method for getting into the routine of character building involves writing down what makes them tick. Take a famous character from a book or a famous children’s TV show. Split a piece of paper into a grid, and label them with things like “what makes them happy”, “what makes them angry” “How would they react in a certain situation?”

Then as a class fill out the grid. You could use them method when a pupil comes up with a new character for their story, helping them to get in the correct mindsight for creating characters.

9. Give your pupils freedom

There will be a lot of children in your class who thrive when given the freedom to write. Always remember to set aside time for your pupils to have an open-ended opportunity to write, allowing them to express their favourite topics. If it’s too open for some children, then proposing a particular topic for this time can help too.

10. Use story-starters and prompts

Story-starters or prompts are great for getting the creative juices flowing. It helps pupils to avoid the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. We’ve got a whole load of story starters for KS1 and KS2 creative writers, but here are just a few to get the juices flowing:

  • It was there and then it was gone! As quick as a flash…
  • This was it! I now had the power to change anything.
  • A million pounds sat there in the suitcase. “What should we do with it?” I said.
  • The three friends set out on their journey, with nothing but each other to help them for what lied ahead.
  • The car lurched down the road when suddenly a thud came from below.
  • The tap on my shoulder woke me. “Shhh” she said with a finger pressed to her lips. “Follow me.”

11. Elaborate with a story generator

Generate ideas and get a story rolling with a tried and tested method: the story generator. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

  • Find three bags
  • Create three lists: one for characters (a footballer, a dog, an astronaut etc), one for scenes (an unknown planet, a bedroom, a park etc) and one for the situation (looking for a lost coin, meets a talking dog, during a big thunderstorm etc)
  • Cut out each of the ideas and group them together in the bags. You have three bags filled with dozens of possibilities for different stories.
  • Ask a pupil to reach into each bag so they then have a character, a scene and a situation. This is the basis of their story.

12. Get the children to take creative writing home

The home environment will be a more comfortable or possibly, a more inspiring place for children to write their stories. Encouraging parents to get onside with this can sometimes be a battle, but one worth fighting. Sharing their stories and creations across different audiences is a valuable experience for children, whether that be in class, at home or safely online. The perfect flipped classroom experience!

<a href="https://blog.hope-education.co.uk/author/amber-vaccianna/" target="_self">Amber Vaccianna</a>

Amber Vaccianna

Hope Education writer

Advice & Inspiration | Primary

9 october 2020.

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The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

March 11, 2015

1st Grade How To Writing

  Hands-On Experiences : Building Paper Planes

 hands-on experiences : making maracas, launching workshop.

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Favorite Mini-Lessons

Transition words, favorite mentor texts.

Throughout the week, I’m pulling from three of my favorite mentor texts – How to Babysit a Grandpa , How To Wash a Woolly Mammoth , and How to Teach a Slug to Read . These are perfect for showing students how real-author use how-to techniques (logical order, sequencing, time order words) to share a story or information with a reader.

Read and see more HERE .

How-To Writing within Work on Writing

As we start writing our How-To pieces independently, we’ll self-assess our writing and use the below checklist (personal ones and a class anchor chart) to guide our work.

In retrospect, this is a unit I’ll definitely teach at the beginning of the year. Teaching at this point of the year, is much simpler and requires less groundwork, but still, it’s a nice review of skills we’ve learned throughout the year in reading and writing. Plus, now that we’re officially readers and writers, it’s amazing to see what my students come up with!

  • Opinion Writing ( blog post ,  resources ,  mentor texts ,  bundle )
  • Narrative Writing ( blog post ,  resources ,  mentor texts ,  bundle )
  • Inform/Explain Writing ( blog post ,  resources ,  bundle )
  • How-To Writing ( blog post ,  resources ,  bundle )

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Primary Bliss Teaching

Teaching Made Easy in First Grade

TEACHING BEGINNING OF YEAR FIRST GRADE WRITING HAS NEVER BEEN EASIER

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Does the thought of teaching beginning of the year writing in first grade sound less pleasant than a staff meeting that has gone into overtime?

Teaching first-grade writing is not for the weak . It’s no easy task. Like for real.

Teaching first grade writing at the beginning of the year …even trickier.

I remember my first year as a teacher. So excited and full of energy. Writing was absolutely, without a doubt, the one topic I looked most forward to teaching.

Then… not so much .

  • I had students who struggled to hold a pencil.
  • Students who ran all their words together. I’m talkin’ absolutely no spaces between words whatsoever .
  • I had students who began every. single. sentence . with the word ‘ and’ .
  • Worse yet, I had students who wrote an entire paragraph using just one sentence and a whole lot of ‘ ands’ .
  • I had students who cried because they didn’t know what to write about, didn’t know how to spell words, or simply didn’t like to write.
  • The list goes on. 

Let’s just say that the image of myself being a champion writing teacher on year one was trampled by a gigantic stampede of wildebeests.

First Grade Beginning of they Year Writing

BUT NOW…TEACHING FIRST GRADE WRITING AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR

Has never been easier.

Fast forward to today. I can honestly say that writing is easy to teach, and it’s oh so rewarding to watch as my 1st-grade writers’ abilities soar to new heights .

After trying, and failing, to implement a Writers’ Workshop model, my first-grade teaching bestie and I sat down to take a good long look at our standards and what the end writing goals were for our students.

Then we jumped into backward planning. We asked ourselves what we wanted our students’ writing to look like by the end of first grade, and identified all the building blocks students needed in order to achieve our expectations of them.

When this was all said and done, we were able to pinpoint exactly what foundational skills our first graders need to know prior to jumping headfirst into opinion, narrative, and informative writing.

Here’s what we came up with:

  • Drawing pictures using basic shapes and lines
  • Labeling pictures using best-guess spelling
  • Writing a complete sentence with a subject and predicate
  • Proper use of capitals , spaces between words, and punctuation
  • How to write using a sentence stem
  • Learn to write telling sentences (declarative)
  • How to write asking sentences (question)
  • Teach how to write exclamatory sentences
  • Writing lists
  • Listing 3 or more things in a sentence using commas
  • Respond to questions in writing
  • Writing stronger sentences using adjectives, adverbs, who, what, where, when, or how
  • Use feedback from teacher  and peers to strengthen writing
  • Write more than one sentence on a topic

Now imagine jumping into a narrative, opinion, or informational writing unit knowing your students have all of the above skills mastered . Did the thought of that make your teaching life 1,000 percent easier ?

First Grade Writing Curriculum for the Beginning of the year

Introducing a Curriculum that will Truly Bring Joy Back to Teaching Writing

First grade writing – building the foundation.

If you’re still with me, you’re probably wondering what this writing resource is all about. Well, let me show you!

The teaching portion of our First Grade Writing – Building the Foundation unit is DIGITAL. That means no lesson plan pages, instructional pages, or any other pages will waste precious ink! Can I get a hallelujah?

What’s more,  everything you need for the day’s writing lesson is on the slides ! (Okay…full disclosure….except for the one student page you’ll need each day. You can print out the entire 8 weeks’ worth of student work in one little click.)

Here’s a quick overview of what most of the daily 1st-grade writing lessons look like. (There are a few variations based on what students have learned.)

1. share learning targets with students. have students state the “i will” statement with you..

We have chosen to use “I will” statements as we believe students will take more ownership in their learning . This idea came from a presenter in a professional development course we were in, and we loved it.  Why? The shift students mentally make using “I will” statements versus “I can” statements is tremendous.

We can do lots of things (eat healthier, workout every day, quit drinking coffee ). When we change the can to will . …the statement takes on a whole new meaning.

Common Core writing standards for first grade are written on the bottom of each slide.

First Grade Writing Chat with Standard

2. Engage students in a Writing Chat activity.

Some lessons begin with a Writing Chat. The purpose of a Writing Chat is to introduce a new writing concept, develop vocabulary, and build background knowledge for students.

First Grade Writing Chat example

3. Engage Students in the “Watch Me” activity. 

This is where the explicit teaching happens . Students will watch as you model the new teaching target. By modeling your expectations, students have a clear understanding of what it is you expect of them.

First Grade Writing Slide for Teacher Model Lesson

4. Engage students in the “Our Turn” portion of the lesson.

The “Our Turn” portion of the lesson is where you and your students will practice the new skill/concept together . This is the time students will be applying, with your help, the skills and strategies that were modeled. Students are being set up for success for the next phase of the lesson.

First Grade Writing Slide "Our Turn"

5. The final stage of the lesson is “Your Turn”.

Finally, students will independently practice the skill/concept taught. Because they have been explicitly taught the learning target for the day, students will have great success with this writing activity.

First Grade Writing "Your Turn" slide

And there you have it! Writing made EASY! Seriously easy. A snap. A breeze. A cinch. You could alllllmost do it with your eyes closed. #okaymaybenot

In all seriousness, we have truly had great success with teaching our first graders to write and oftentimes are complimented on our abilities to teach writing. We give all the accolades to the students. They did the writing. All we did was break it down to itty bitty steps that made it manageable for them to digest.

Are you ready to get your year off to a GREAT with 8 weeks of explicit lessons that will set your students up for success the rest of the year?

If so, CLICK HERE or on the image below to learn more.

First Grade Writing Curriculum for the Beginning of the year

Wishing you joyful days and restful nights. Teaching is tough…take care of yourself and give yourself a whole lotta grace. After all, your superpower is shaping young lives and making our world a better place. Here’s to YOU!

Cindy and Becky

Want to make Beginning of Year Writing in First Grade a SNAP to teach? CLICK HERE to check out that, and our other  Grab-and-Go, NO PREP Writing Resources !

Update, we now have second-grade writing resources available too. CLICK HERE to have a peek.

You may also be interested in these blogs:

5 Easy Steps to Teaching Number Talks in First Grade 

18 Phonological Awareness Activities to Try Today!

5 Number Talks to Try This Week

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April 25, 2023 at 9:26 am

I plan on using this in my first grade classroom next year. I have researched the slides in this program and I like how it builds the foundation for second language learners. I feel this is a great program and can not wait to implement it with my children in the new school year.

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March 27, 2022 at 1:14 pm

Hello, I have and use your first grade writing curriculum. I absolutely love it!!! And the growth I’ve seen in my students is amazing! Next year I will be teaching kindergarten. Any chance you are writing a bundle for that?? I HATE writer’s workshop in Kinder! Thank you!

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April 21, 2022 at 6:55 pm

Hi Jenny! Thank you so much for your kind words. Yes, we are working on a kindergarten curriculum currently. We hope to have it finished by the end of summer before school starts.

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January 25, 2022 at 2:09 pm

Hey, I just bought your 1st grade writing yearlong bundle on tpt. Are these units created to be taught in a specific order? Of course, I know to begin with the foundations unit but what order do you recommend teaching the narrative, informative, and opinion units? Thanks so much!

March 19, 2022 at 8:03 am

Hi Jessica! After you teach the Building the Foundation unit, you can teach the remaining units in any order. They are all scaffolded to ensure success for all.

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A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

July 29, 2018

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“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”  This proverb, attributed to the Hopi Indians, is one I wish I’d known a long time ago, because I would have used it when teaching my students the craft of storytelling. With a well-told story we can help a person see things in an entirely new way. We can forge new relationships and strengthen the ones we already have. We can change a law, inspire a movement, make people care fiercely about things they’d never given a passing thought.

But when we study storytelling with our students, we forget all that. Or at least I did. When my students asked why we read novels and stories, and why we wrote personal narratives and fiction, my defense was pretty lame: I probably said something about the importance of having a shared body of knowledge, or about the enjoyment of losing yourself in a book, or about the benefits of having writing skills in general.

I forgot to talk about the  power of story. I didn’t bother to tell them that the ability to tell a captivating story is one of the things that makes human beings extraordinary. It’s how we connect to each other. It’s something to celebrate, to study, to perfect. If we’re going to talk about how to teach students to write stories, we should start by thinking about why we tell stories at all . If we can pass that on to our students, then we will be going beyond a school assignment; we will be doing something transcendent.

Now. How do we get them to write those stories? I’m going to share the process I used for teaching narrative writing. I used this process with middle school students, but it would work with most age groups.

A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?

When teaching narrative writing, many teachers separate personal narratives from short stories. In my own classroom, I tended to avoid having my students write short stories because personal narratives were more accessible. I could usually get students to write about something that really happened, while it was more challenging to get them to make something up from scratch.

In the “real” world of writers, though, the main thing that separates memoir from fiction is labeling: A writer might base a novel heavily on personal experiences, but write it all in third person and change the names of characters to protect the identities of people in real life. Another writer might create a short story in first person that reads like a personal narrative, but is entirely fictional. Just last weekend my husband and I watched the movie Lion and were glued to the screen the whole time, knowing it was based on a true story. James Frey’s book  A Million Little Pieces  sold millions of copies as a memoir but was later found to contain more than a little bit of fiction. Then there are unique books like Curtis Sittenfeld’s brilliant novel American Wife , based heavily on the early life of Laura Bush but written in first person, with fictional names and settings, and labeled as a work of fiction. The line between fact and fiction has always been really, really blurry, but the common thread running through all of it is good storytelling.

With that in mind, the process for teaching narrative writing can be exactly the same for writing personal narratives or short stories; it’s the same skill set. So if you think your students can handle the freedom, you might decide to let them choose personal narrative or fiction for a narrative writing assignment, or simply tell them that whether the story is true doesn’t matter, as long as they are telling a good story and they are not trying to pass off a fictional story as fact.

Here are some examples of what that kind of flexibility could allow:

  • A student might tell a true story from their own experience, but write it as if it were a fiction piece, with fictional characters, in third person.
  • A student might create a completely fictional story, but tell it in first person, which would give it the same feel as a personal narrative.
  • A student might tell a true story that happened to someone else, but write it in first person, as if they were that person. For example, I could write about my grandmother’s experience of getting lost as a child, but I might write it in her voice.

If we aren’t too restrictive about what we call these pieces, and we talk about different possibilities with our students, we can end up with lots of interesting outcomes. Meanwhile, we’re still teaching students the craft of narrative writing.

A Note About Process: Write With Your Students

One of the most powerful techniques I used as a writing teacher was to do my students’ writing assignments with them. I would start my own draft at the same time as they did, composing “live” on the classroom projector, and doing a lot of thinking out loud so they could see all the decisions a writer has to make.

The most helpful parts for them to observe were the early drafting stage, where I just scratched out whatever came to me in messy, run-on sentences, and the revision stage, where I crossed things out, rearranged, and made tons of notes on my writing. I have seen over and over again how witnessing that process can really help to unlock a student’s understanding of how writing actually gets made.

A Narrative Writing Unit Plan

Before I get into these steps, I should note that there is no one right way to teach narrative writing, and plenty of accomplished teachers are doing it differently and getting great results. This just happens to be a process that has worked for me.

Step 1: Show Students That Stories Are Everywhere

Getting our students to tell stories should be easy. They hear and tell stories all the time. But when they actually have to put words on paper, they forget their storytelling abilities: They can’t think of a topic. They omit relevant details, but go on and on about irrelevant ones. Their dialogue is bland. They can’t figure out how to start. They can’t figure out how to end.

So the first step in getting good narrative writing from students is to help them see that they are already telling stories every day . They gather at lockers to talk about that thing that happened over the weekend. They sit at lunch and describe an argument they had with a sibling. Without even thinking about it, they begin sentences with “This one time…” and launch into stories about their earlier childhood experiences. Students are natural storytellers; learning how to do it well on paper is simply a matter of studying good models, then imitating what those writers do.

So start off the unit by getting students to tell their stories. In journal quick-writes, think-pair-shares, or by playing a game like Concentric Circles , prompt them to tell some of their own brief stories: A time they were embarrassed. A time they lost something. A time they didn’t get to do something they really wanted to do. By telling their own short anecdotes, they will grow more comfortable and confident in their storytelling abilities. They will also be generating a list of topic ideas. And by listening to the stories of their classmates, they will be adding onto that list and remembering more of their own stories.

And remember to tell some of your own. Besides being a good way to bond with students, sharing  your stories will help them see more possibilities for the ones they can tell.

Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story

Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like.

Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below. Then, using a simple story—like this Coca Cola commercial —fill out the story arc with the components from that story. Once students have seen this story mapped out, have them try it with another one, like a story you’ve read in class, a whole novel, or another short video.

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Step 3: Introduce the Assignment

Up to this point, students have been immersed in storytelling. Now give them specific instructions for what they are going to do. Share your assignment rubric so they understand the criteria that will be used to evaluate them; it should be ready and transparent right from the beginning of the unit. As always, I recommend using a single point rubric for this.

Step 4: Read Models

Once the parameters of the assignment have been explained, have students read at least one model story, a mentor text that exemplifies the qualities you’re looking for. This should be a story on a topic your students can kind of relate to, something they could see themselves writing. For my narrative writing unit (see the end of this post), I wrote a story called “Frog” about a 13-year-old girl who finally gets to stay home alone, then finds a frog in her house and gets completely freaked out, which basically ruins the fun she was planning for the night.

They will be reading this model as writers, looking at how the author shaped the text for a purpose, so that they can use those same strategies in their own writing. Have them look at your rubric and find places in the model that illustrate the qualities listed in the rubric. Then have them complete a story arc for the model so they can see the underlying structure.

Ideally, your students will have already read lots of different stories to look to as models. If that isn’t the case, this list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter would be a good place to browse for titles that might be right for your students. Keep in mind that we have not read most of these stories, so be sure to read them first before adopting them for classroom use.

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Click the image above to view the full list of narrative texts recommended by Cult of Pedagogy followers on Twitter. If you have a suggestion for the list, please email us through our contact page.

Step 5: Story Mapping

At this point, students will need to decide what they are going to write about. If they are stuck for a topic, have them just pick something they can write about, even if it’s not the most captivating story in the world. A skilled writer could tell a great story about deciding what to have for lunch. If they are using the skills of narrative writing, the topic isn’t as important as the execution.

Have students complete a basic story arc for their chosen topic using a diagram like the one below. This will help them make sure that they actually have a story to tell, with an identifiable problem, a sequence of events that build to a climax, and some kind of resolution, where something is different by the end. Again, if you are writing with your students, this would be an important step to model for them with your own story-in-progress.

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Step 6: Quick Drafts

Now, have students get their chosen story down on paper as quickly as possible: This could be basically a long paragraph that would read almost like a summary, but it would contain all the major parts of the story. Model this step with your own story, so they can see that you are not shooting for perfection in any way. What you want is a working draft, a starting point, something to build on for later, rather than a blank page (or screen) to stare at.

Step 7: Plan the Pacing

Now that the story has been born in raw form, students can begin to shape it. This would be a good time for a lesson on pacing, where students look at how writers expand some moments to create drama and shrink other moments so that the story doesn’t drag. Creating a diagram like the one below forces a writer to decide how much space to devote to all of the events in the story.

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Before students write a full draft, have them plan out the events in their story with a pacing diagram, a visual representation of how much “space” each part of the story is going to take up.

Step 8: Long Drafts

With a good plan in hand, students can now slow down and write a proper draft, expanding the sections of their story that they plan to really draw out and adding in more of the details that they left out in the quick draft.

Step 9: Workshop

Once students have a decent rough draft—something that has a basic beginning, middle, and end, with some discernible rising action, a climax of some kind, and a resolution, you’re ready to shift into full-on workshop mode. I would do this for at least a week: Start class with a short mini-lesson on some aspect of narrative writing craft, then give students the rest of the period to write, conference with you, and collaborate with their peers. During that time, they should focus some of their attention on applying the skill they learned in the mini-lesson to their drafts, so they will improve a little bit every day.

Topics for mini-lessons can include:

  • How to weave exposition into your story so you don’t give readers an “information dump”
  • How to carefully select dialogue to create good scenes, rather than quoting everything in a conversation
  • How to punctuate and format dialogue so that it imitates the natural flow of a conversation
  • How to describe things using sensory details and figurative language; also,  what  to describe…students too often give lots of irrelevant detail
  • How to choose precise nouns and vivid verbs, use a variety of sentence lengths and structures, and add transitional words, phrases, and features to help the reader follow along
  • How to start, end, and title a story

Step 10: Final Revisions and Edits

As the unit nears its end, students should be shifting away from revision , in which they alter the content of a piece, toward editing , where they make smaller changes to the mechanics of the writing. Make sure students understand the difference between the two: They should not be correcting each other’s spelling and punctuation in the early stages of this process, when the focus should be on shaping a better story.

One of the most effective strategies for revision and editing is to have students read their stories out loud. In the early stages, this will reveal places where information is missing or things get confusing. Later, more read-alouds will help them immediately find missing words, unintentional repetitions, and sentences that just “sound weird.” So get your students to read their work out loud frequently. It also helps to print stories on paper: For some reason, seeing the words in print helps us notice things we didn’t see on the screen.

To get the most from peer review, where students read and comment on each other’s work, more modeling from you is essential: Pull up a sample piece of writing and show students how to give specific feedback that helps, rather than simply writing “good detail” or “needs more detail,” the two comments I saw exchanged most often on students’ peer-reviewed papers.

Step 11: Final Copies and Publication

Once revision and peer review are done, students will hand in their final copies. If you don’t want to get stuck with 100-plus papers to grade, consider using Catlin Tucker’s station rotation model , which keeps all the grading in class. And when you do return stories with your own feedback, try using Kristy Louden’s delayed grade strategy , where students don’t see their final grade until they have read your written feedback.

Beyond the standard hand-in-for-a-grade, consider other ways to have students publish their stories. Here are some options:

  • Stories could be published as individual pages on a collaborative website or blog.
  • Students could create illustrated e-books out of their stories.
  • Students could create a slideshow to accompany their stories and record them as digital storytelling videos. This could be done with a tool like Screencastify or Screencast-O-Matic .

So this is what worked for me. If you’ve struggled to get good stories from your students, try some or all of these techniques next time. I think you’ll find that all of your students have some pretty interesting stories to tell. Helping them tell their stories well is a gift that will serve them for many years after they leave your classroom. ♦

Want this unit ready-made?

If you’re a writing teacher in grades 7-12 and you’d like a classroom-ready unit like the one described above, including slideshow mini-lessons on 14 areas of narrative craft, a sample narrative piece, editable rubrics, and other supplemental materials to guide students through every stage of the process, take a look at my Narrative Writing unit . Just click on the image below and you’ll be taken to a page where you can read more and see a detailed preview of what’s included.

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

What to Read Next

how to teach creative writing to grade 1

Categories: Instruction , Podcast

Tags: English language arts , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , teaching strategies

50 Comments

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Wow, this is a wonderful guide! If my English teachers had taught this way, I’m sure I would have enjoyed narrative writing instead of dreading it. I’ll be able to use many of these suggestions when writing my blog! BrP

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Lst year I was so discouraged because the short stories looked like the quick drafts described in this article. I thought I had totally failed until I read this and realized I did not fai,l I just needed to complete the process. Thank you!

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I feel like you jumped in my head and connected my thoughts. I appreciate the time you took to stop and look closely at form. I really believe that student-writers should see all dimensions of narrative writing and be able to live in whichever style and voice they want for their work.

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Can’t thank you enough for this. So well curated that one can just follow it blindly and ace at teaching it. Thanks again!

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Great post! I especially liked your comments about reminding kids about the power of storytelling. My favourite podcasts and posts from you are always about how to do things in the classroom and I appreciate the research you do.

On a side note, the ice breakers are really handy. My kids know each other really well (rural community), and can tune out pretty quickly if there is nothing new to learn about their peers, but they like the games (and can remember where we stopped last time weeks later). I’ve started changing them up with ‘life questions’, so the editable version is great!

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I love writing with my students and loved this podcast! A fun extension to this narrative is to challenge students to write another story about the same event, but use the perspective of another “character” from the story. Books like Wonder (R.J. Palacio) and Wanderer (Sharon Creech) can model the concept for students.

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Thank you for your great efforts to reveal the practical writing strategies in layered details. As English is not my first language, I need listen to your podcast and read the text repeatedly so to fully understand. It’s worthy of the time for some great post like yours. I love sharing so I send the link to my English practice group that it can benefit more. I hope I could be able to give you some feedback later on.

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Thank you for helping me get to know better especially the techniques in writing narrative text. Im an English teacher for 5years but have little knowledge on writing. I hope you could feature techniques in writing news and fearute story. God bless and more power!

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Thank you for this! I am very interested in teaching a unit on personal narrative and this was an extremely helpful breakdown. As a current student teacher I am still unsure how to approach breaking down the structures of different genres of writing in a way that is helpful for me students but not too restrictive. The story mapping tools you provided really allowed me to think about this in a new way. Writing is such a powerful way to experience the world and more than anything I want my students to realize its power. Stories are how we make sense of the world and as an English teacher I feel obligated to give my students access to this particular skill.

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The power of story is unfathomable. There’s this NGO in India doing some great work in harnessing the power of storytelling and plots to brighten children’s lives and enlighten them with true knowledge. Check out Katha India here: http://bit.ly/KathaIndia

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Thank you so much for this. I did not go to college to become a writing professor, but due to restructuring in my department, I indeed am! This is a wonderful guide that I will use when teaching the narrative essay. I wonder if you have a similar guide for other modes such as descriptive, process, argument, etc.?

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Hey Melanie, Jenn does have another guide on writing! Check out A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Argumentative Writing .

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Hi, I am also wondering if there is a similar guide for descriptive writing in particular?

Hey Melanie, unfortunately Jenn doesn’t currently have a guide for descriptive writing. She’s always working on projects though, so she may get around to writing a unit like this in the future. You can always check her Teachers Pay Teachers page for an up-to-date list of materials she has available. Thanks!

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I want to write about the new character in my area

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That’s great! Let us know if you need any supports during your writing process!

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I absolutely adore this unit plan. I teach freshmen English at a low-income high school and wanted to find something to help my students find their voice. It is not often that I borrow material, but I borrowed and adapted all of it in the order that it is presented! It is cohesive, understandable, and fun. Thank you!!

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So glad to hear this, Nicole!

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Thanks sharing this post. My students often get confused between personal narratives and short stories. Whenever I ask them to write a short story, she share their own experiences and add a bit of fiction in it to make it interesting.

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Thank you! My students have loved this so far. I do have a question as to where the “Frog” story mentioned in Step 4 is. I could really use it! Thanks again.

This is great to hear, Emily! In Step 4, Jenn mentions that she wrote the “Frog” story for her narrative writing unit . Just scroll down the bottom of the post and you’ll see a link to the unit.

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I also cannot find the link to the short story “Frog”– any chance someone can send it or we can repost it?

This story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. You can find a link to this unit in Step 4 or at the bottom of the article. Hope this helps.

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I cannot find the frog story mentioned. Could you please send the link.? Thank you

Hi Michelle,

The Frog story was written for Jenn’s narrative writing unit. There’s a link to this unit in Step 4 and at the bottom of the article.

Debbie- thanks for you reply… but there is no link to the story in step 4 or at the bottom of the page….

Hey Shawn, the frog story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link Debbie is referring to at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit and you would have to purchase that to gain access to the frog story. I hope this clears things up.

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Thank you so much for this resource! I’m a high school English teacher, and am currently teaching creative writing for the first time. I really do value your blog, podcast, and other resources, so I’m excited to use this unit. I’m a cyber school teacher, so clear, organized layout is important; and I spend a lot of time making sure my content is visually accessible for my students to process. Thanks for creating resources that are easy for us teachers to process and use.

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Do you have a lesson for Informative writing?

Hey Cari, Jenn has another unit on argumentative writing , but doesn’t have one yet on informative writing. She may develop one in the future so check back in sometime.

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I had the same question. Informational writing is so difficult to have a good strong unit in when you have so many different text structures to meet and need text-dependent writing tasks.

Creating an informational writing unit is still on Jenn’s long list of projects to get to, but in the meantime, if you haven’t already, check out When We All Teach Text Structures, Everyone Wins . It might help you out!

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This is a great lesson! It would be helpful to see a finished draft of the frog narrative arc. Students’ greatest challenge is transferring their ideas from the planner to a full draft. To see a full sample of how this arc was transformed into a complete narrative draft would be a powerful learning tool.

Hi Stacey! Jenn goes into more depth with the “Frog” lesson in her narrative writing unit – this is where you can find a sample of what a completed story arc might look. Also included is a draft of the narrative. If interested in checking out the unit and seeing a preview, just scroll down to the bottom of the post and click on the image. Hope this helps!

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Helped me learn for an entrance exam thanks very much

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Is the narrative writing lesson you talk about in https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/narrative-writing/

Also doable for elementary students you think, and if to what levels?

Love your work, Sincerely, Zanyar

Hey Zanyar,

It’s possible the unit would work with 4th and 5th graders, but Jenn definitely wouldn’t recommend going any younger. The main reason for this is that some of the mini-lessons in the unit could be challenging for students who are still concrete thinkers. You’d likely need to do some adjusting and scaffolding which could extend the unit beyond the 3 weeks. Having said that, I taught 1st grade and found the steps of the writing process, as described in the post, to be very similar. Of course learning targets/standards were different, but the process itself can be applied to any grade level (modeling writing, using mentor texts to study how stories work, planning the structure of the story, drafting, elaborating, etc.) Hope this helps!

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This has made my life so much easier. After teaching in different schools systems, from the American, to British to IB, one needs to identify the anchor standards and concepts, that are common between all these systems, to build well balanced thematic units. Just reading these steps gave me the guidance I needed to satisfy both the conceptual framework the schools ask for and the standards-based practice. Thank you Thank you.

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Would this work for teaching a first grader about narrative writing? I am also looking for a great book to use as a model for narrative writing. Veggie Monster is being used by his teacher and he isn’t connecting with this book in the least bit, so it isn’t having a positive impact. My fear is he will associate this with writing and I don’t want a negative association connected to such a beautiful process and experience. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thank you for any information you can provide!

Although I think the materials in the actual narrative writing unit are really too advanced for a first grader, the general process that’s described in the blog post can still work really well.

I’m sorry your child isn’t connecting with The Night of the Veggie Monster. Try to keep in mind that the main reason this is used as a mentor text is because it models how a small moment story can be told in a big way. It’s filled with all kinds of wonderful text features that impact the meaning of the story – dialogue, description, bold text, speech bubbles, changes in text size, ellipses, zoomed in images, text placement, text shape, etc. All of these things will become mini-lessons throughout the unit. But there are lots of other wonderful mentor texts that your child might enjoy. My suggestion for an early writer, is to look for a small moment text, similar in structure, that zooms in on a problem that a first grader can relate to. In addition to the mentor texts that I found in this article , you might also want to check out Knuffle Bunny, Kitten’s First Full Moon, When Sophie Gets Angry Really Really Angry, and Whistle for Willie. Hope this helps!

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I saw this on Pinterest the other day while searching for examples of narritives units/lessons. I clicked on it because I always click on C.o.P stuff 🙂 And I wasn’t disapointed. I was intrigued by the connection of narratives to humanity–even if a student doesn’t identify as a writer, he/she certainly is human, right? I really liked this. THIS clicked with me.

A few days after I read the P.o.C post, I ventured on to YouTube for more ideas to help guide me with my 8th graders’ narrative writing this coming spring. And there was a TEDx video titled, “The Power of Personal Narrative” by J. Christan Jensen. I immediately remembered the line from the article above that associated storytelling with “power” and how it sets humans apart and if introduced and taught as such, it can be “extraordinary.”

I watched the video and to the suprise of my expectations, it was FANTASTIC. Between Jennifer’s post and the TEDx video ignited within me some major motivation and excitement to begin this unit.

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Thanks for sharing this with us! So glad that Jenn’s post paired with another text gave you some motivation and excitement. I’ll be sure to pass this on to Jenn!

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Thank you very much for this really helpful post! I really love the idea of helping our students understand that storytelling is powerful and then go on to teach them how to harness that power. That is the essence of teaching literature or writing at any level. However, I’m a little worried about telling students that whether a piece of writing is fact or fiction does not matter. It in fact matters a lot precisely because storytelling is powerful. Narratives can shape people’s views and get their emotions involved which would, in turn, motivate them to act on a certain matter, whether for good or for bad. A fictional narrative that is passed as factual could cause a lot of damage in the real world. I believe we should. I can see how helping students focus on writing the story rather than the truth of it all could help refine the needed skills without distractions. Nevertheless, would it not be prudent to teach our students to not just harness the power of storytelling but refrain from misusing it by pushing false narratives as factual? It is true that in reality, memoirs pass as factual while novels do as fictional while the opposite may be true for both cases. I am not too worried about novels passing as fictional. On the other hand, fictional narratives masquerading as factual are disconcerting and part of a phenomenon that needs to be fought against, not enhanced or condoned in education. This is especially true because memoirs are often used by powerful people to write/re-write history. I would really like to hear your opinion on this. Thanks a lot for a great post and a lot of helpful resources!

Thank you so much for this. Jenn and I had a chance to chat and we can see where you’re coming from. Jenn never meant to suggest that a person should pass off a piece of fictional writing as a true story. Good stories can be true, completely fictional, or based on a true story that’s mixed with some fiction – that part doesn’t really matter. However, what does matter is how a student labels their story. We think that could have been stated more clearly in the post , so Jenn decided to add a bit about this at the end of the 3rd paragraph in the section “A Note About Form: Personal Narrative or Short Story?” Thanks again for bringing this to our attention!

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You have no idea how much your page has helped me in so many ways. I am currently in my teaching credential program and there are times that I feel lost due to a lack of experience in the classroom. I’m so glad I came across your page! Thank you for sharing!

Thanks so much for letting us know-this means a whole lot!

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No, we’re sorry. Jenn actually gets this question fairly often. It’s something she considered doing at one point, but because she has so many other projects she’s working on, she’s just not gotten to it.

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I couldn’t find the story

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Hi, Duraiya. The “Frog” story is part of Jenn’s narrative writing unit, which is available on her Teachers Pay Teachers site. The link at the bottom of this post will take you to her narrative writing unit, which you can purchase to gain access to the story. I hope this helps!

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  • How to write a story
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  • For teachers

How to Teach Writing - Resources for Creative Writing Teachers

Fiction writing course syllabus with lesson plans, fiction writing exercises and worksheets, resources for teaching introductory poetry writing, resources for teaching children.

person holding butterfly, to illustrate page on how to teach writing and resources for creative writing teachers

How to teach writing - general thoughts

  • help students to understand the elements of craft (e.g., story structure, poetic meter, etc.) so that they can recognize them in their reading and consciously experiment with them in their writing.
  • open students' eyes to the options available to them when they write a story or poem (e.g., "showing" instead of "telling", using different kinds of narrators and narrative viewpoints, using different poetic forms).
  • encourage students to become close observers of the world around them and to find creative material in their environments.
  • teach students the value of specificity, of using all five senses to discover details that may not be obvious to the casual observer.
  • help students to separate the processes of writing and editing, to avoid self-criticism while writing their rough drafts to allow ideas to flow freely (for this to work, their teachers also have to avoid criticizing rough drafts!). Teach students to treat self-editing as a separate stage in the writing process.
  • get students reading in the genre they'll be writing; e.g., if they're writing poetry, encourage them to read a lot of poems.
  • help students learn to trust their own perspectives and observations, to believe that they have something interesting to say.
  • teach students not to wait for inspiration, that they can write even when not inspired.
  • get students excited about writing!

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Literacy Ideas

Narrative Writing: A Complete Guide for Teachers and Students

Complete guide to Narrative Writing

MASTERING THE CRAFT OF NARRATIVE WRITING

Narratives build on and encourage the development of the fundamentals of writing. They also require developing an additional skill set: the ability to tell a good yarn, and storytelling is as old as humanity.

We see and hear stories everywhere and daily, from having good gossip on the doorstep with a neighbor in the morning to the dramas that fill our screens in the evening.

Good narrative writing skills are hard-won by students even though it is an area of writing that most enjoy due to the creativity and freedom it offers.

Here we will explore some of the main elements of a good story: plot, setting, characters, conflict, climax, and resolution . And we will look too at how best we can help our students understand these elements, both in isolation and how they mesh together as a whole.

Visual Writing Prompts

WHAT IS A NARRATIVE?

What is a narrative?

A narrative is a story that shares a sequence of events , characters, and themes. It expresses experiences, ideas, and perspectives that should aspire to engage and inspire an audience.

A narrative can spark emotion, encourage reflection, and convey meaning when done well.

Narratives are a popular genre for students and teachers as they allow the writer to share their imagination, creativity, skill, and understanding of nearly all elements of writing.  We occasionally refer to a narrative as ‘creative writing’ or story writing.

The purpose of a narrative is simple, to tell the audience a story.  It can be written to motivate, educate, or entertain and can be fact or fiction.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING NARRATIVE WRITING

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Teach your students to become skilled story writers with this HUGE   NARRATIVE & CREATIVE STORY WRITING UNIT . Offering a  COMPLETE SOLUTION  to teaching students how to craft  CREATIVE CHARACTERS, SUPERB SETTINGS, and PERFECT PLOTS .

Over 192 PAGES of materials, including:

TYPES OF NARRATIVE WRITING

There are many narrative writing genres and sub-genres such as these.

We have a complete guide to writing a personal narrative that differs from the traditional story-based narrative covered in this guide. It includes personal narrative writing prompts, resources, and examples and can be found here.

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As we can see, narratives are an open-ended form of writing that allows you to showcase creativity in many directions. However, all narratives share a common set of features and structure known as “Story Elements”, which are briefly covered in this guide.

Don’t overlook the importance of understanding story elements and the value this adds to you as a writer who can dissect and create grand narratives. We also have an in-depth guide to understanding story elements here .

CHARACTERISTICS OF NARRATIVE WRITING

Narrative structure.

ORIENTATION (BEGINNING) Set the scene by introducing your characters, setting and time of the story. Establish your who, when and where in this part of your narrative

COMPLICATION AND EVENTS (MIDDLE) In this section activities and events involving your main characters are expanded upon. These events are written in a cohesive and fluent sequence.

RESOLUTION (ENDING) Your complication is resolved in this section. It does not have to be a happy outcome, however.

EXTRAS: Whilst orientation, complication and resolution are the agreed norms for a narrative, there are numerous examples of popular texts that did not explicitly follow this path exactly.

NARRATIVE FEATURES

LANGUAGE: Use descriptive and figurative language to paint images inside your audience’s minds as they read.

PERSPECTIVE Narratives can be written from any perspective but are most commonly written in first or third person.

DIALOGUE Narratives frequently switch from narrator to first-person dialogue. Always use speech marks when writing dialogue.

TENSE If you change tense, make it perfectly clear to your audience what is happening. Flashbacks might work well in your mind but make sure they translate to your audience.

THE PLOT MAP

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This graphic is known as a plot map, and nearly all narratives fit this structure in one way or another, whether romance novels, science fiction or otherwise.

It is a simple tool that helps you understand and organise a story’s events. Think of it as a roadmap that outlines the journey of your characters and the events that unfold. It outlines the different stops along the way, such as the introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, that help you to see how the story builds and develops.

Using a plot map, you can see how each event fits into the larger picture and how the different parts of the story work together to create meaning. It’s a great way to visualize and analyze a story.

Be sure to refer to a plot map when planning a story, as it has all the essential elements of a great story.

THE 5 KEY STORY ELEMENTS OF A GREAT NARRATIVE (6-MINUTE TUTORIAL VIDEO)

This video we created provides an excellent overview of these elements and demonstrates them in action in stories we all know and love.

Story Elements for kids

HOW TO WRITE A NARRATIVE

How to write a Narrative

Now that we understand the story elements and how they come together to form stories, it’s time to start planning and writing your narrative.

In many cases, the template and guide below will provide enough details on how to craft a great story. However, if you still need assistance with the fundamentals of writing, such as sentence structure, paragraphs and using correct grammar, we have some excellent guides on those here.

USE YOUR WRITING TIME EFFECTIVELY: Maximize your narrative writing sessions by spending approximately 20 per cent of your time planning and preparing.  This ensures greater productivity during your writing time and keeps you focused and on task.

Use tools such as graphic organizers to logically sequence your narrative if you are not a confident story writer.  If you are working with reluctant writers, try using narrative writing prompts to get their creative juices flowing.

Spend most of your writing hour on the task at hand, don’t get too side-tracked editing during this time and leave some time for editing. When editing a  narrative, examine it for these three elements.

  • Spelling and grammar ( Is it readable?)
  • Story structure and continuity ( Does it make sense, and does it flow? )
  • Character and plot analysis. (Are your characters engaging? Does your problem/resolution work? )

1. SETTING THE SCENE: THE WHERE AND THE WHEN

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The story’s setting often answers two of the central questions in the story, namely, the where and the when. The answers to these two crucial questions will often be informed by the type of story the student is writing.

The story’s setting can be chosen to quickly orient the reader to the type of story they are reading. For example, a fictional narrative writing piece such as a horror story will often begin with a description of a haunted house on a hill or an abandoned asylum in the middle of the woods. If we start our story on a rocket ship hurtling through the cosmos on its space voyage to the Alpha Centauri star system, we can be reasonably sure that the story we are embarking on is a work of science fiction.

Such conventions are well-worn clichés true, but they can be helpful starting points for our novice novelists to make a start.

Having students choose an appropriate setting for the type of story they wish to write is an excellent exercise for our younger students. It leads naturally onto the next stage of story writing, which is creating suitable characters to populate this fictional world they have created. However, older or more advanced students may wish to play with the expectations of appropriate settings for their story. They may wish to do this for comic effect or in the interest of creating a more original story. For example, opening a story with a children’s birthday party does not usually set up the expectation of a horror story. Indeed, it may even lure the reader into a happy reverie as they remember their own happy birthday parties. This leaves them more vulnerable to the surprise element of the shocking action that lies ahead.

Once the students have chosen a setting for their story, they need to start writing. Little can be more terrifying to English students than the blank page and its bare whiteness stretching before them on the table like a merciless desert they must cross. Give them the kick-start they need by offering support through word banks or writing prompts. If the class is all writing a story based on the same theme, you may wish to compile a common word bank on the whiteboard as a prewriting activity. Write the central theme or genre in the middle of the board. Have students suggest words or phrases related to the theme and list them on the board.

You may wish to provide students with a copy of various writing prompts to get them started. While this may mean that many students’ stories will have the same beginning, they will most likely arrive at dramatically different endings via dramatically different routes.

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A bargain is at the centre of the relationship between the writer and the reader. That bargain is that the reader promises to suspend their disbelief as long as the writer creates a consistent and convincing fictional reality. Creating a believable world for the fictional characters to inhabit requires the student to draw on convincing details. The best way of doing this is through writing that appeals to the senses. Have your student reflect deeply on the world that they are creating. What does it look like? Sound like? What does the food taste like there? How does it feel like to walk those imaginary streets, and what aromas beguile the nose as the main character winds their way through that conjured market?

Also, Consider the when; or the time period. Is it a future world where things are cleaner and more antiseptic? Or is it an overcrowded 16th-century London with human waste stinking up the streets? If students can create a multi-sensory installation in the reader’s mind, then they have done this part of their job well.

Popular Settings from Children’s Literature and Storytelling

  • Fairytale Kingdom
  • Magical Forest
  • Village/town
  • Underwater world
  • Space/Alien planet

2. CASTING THE CHARACTERS: THE WHO

Now that your student has created a believable world, it is time to populate it with believable characters.

In short stories, these worlds mustn’t be overpopulated beyond what the student’s skill level can manage. Short stories usually only require one main character and a few secondary ones. Think of the short story more as a small-scale dramatic production in an intimate local theater than a Hollywood blockbuster on a grand scale. Too many characters will only confuse and become unwieldy with a canvas this size. Keep it simple!

Creating believable characters is often one of the most challenging aspects of narrative writing for students. Fortunately, we can do a few things to help students here. Sometimes it is helpful for students to model their characters on actual people they know. This can make things a little less daunting and taxing on the imagination. However, whether or not this is the case, writing brief background bios or descriptions of characters’ physical personality characteristics can be a beneficial prewriting activity. Students should give some in-depth consideration to the details of who their character is: How do they walk? What do they look like? Do they have any distinguishing features? A crooked nose? A limp? Bad breath? Small details such as these bring life and, therefore, believability to characters. Students can even cut pictures from magazines to put a face to their character and allow their imaginations to fill in the rest of the details.

Younger students will often dictate to the reader the nature of their characters. To improve their writing craft, students must know when to switch from story-telling mode to story-showing mode. This is particularly true when it comes to character. Encourage students to reveal their character’s personality through what they do rather than merely by lecturing the reader on the faults and virtues of the character’s personality. It might be a small relayed detail in the way they walk that reveals a core characteristic. For example, a character who walks with their head hanging low and shoulders hunched while avoiding eye contact has been revealed to be timid without the word once being mentioned. This is a much more artistic and well-crafted way of doing things and is less irritating for the reader. A character who sits down at the family dinner table immediately snatches up his fork and starts stuffing roast potatoes into his mouth before anyone else has even managed to sit down has revealed a tendency towards greed or gluttony.

Understanding Character Traits

Again, there is room here for some fun and profitable prewriting activities. Give students a list of character traits and have them describe a character doing something that reveals that trait without ever employing the word itself.

It is also essential to avoid adjective stuffing here. When looking at students’ early drafts, adjective stuffing is often apparent. To train the student out of this habit, choose an adjective and have the student rewrite the sentence to express this adjective through action rather than telling.

When writing a story, it is vital to consider the character’s traits and how they will impact the story’s events. For example, a character with a strong trait of determination may be more likely to overcome obstacles and persevere. In contrast, a character with a tendency towards laziness may struggle to achieve their goals. In short, character traits add realism, depth, and meaning to a story, making it more engaging and memorable for the reader.

Popular Character Traits in Children’s Stories

  • Determination
  • Imagination
  • Perseverance
  • Responsibility

We have an in-depth guide to creating great characters here , but most students should be fine to move on to planning their conflict and resolution.

3. NO PROBLEM? NO STORY! HOW CONFLICT DRIVES A NARRATIVE

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This is often the area apprentice writers have the most difficulty with. Students must understand that without a problem or conflict, there is no story. The problem is the driving force of the action. Usually, in a short story, the problem will center around what the primary character wants to happen or, indeed, wants not to happen. It is the hurdle that must be overcome. It is in the struggle to overcome this hurdle that events happen.

Often when a student understands the need for a problem in a story, their completed work will still not be successful. This is because, often in life, problems remain unsolved. Hurdles are not always successfully overcome. Students pick up on this.

We often discuss problems with friends that will never be satisfactorily resolved one way or the other, and we accept this as a part of life. This is not usually the case with writing a story. Whether a character successfully overcomes his or her problem or is decidedly crushed in the process of trying is not as important as the fact that it will finally be resolved one way or the other.

A good practical exercise for students to get to grips with this is to provide copies of stories and have them identify the central problem or conflict in each through discussion. Familiar fables or fairy tales such as Three Little Pigs, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Cinderella, etc., are great for this.

While it is true that stories often have more than one problem or that the hero or heroine is unsuccessful in their first attempt to solve a central problem, for beginning students and intermediate students, it is best to focus on a single problem, especially given the scope of story writing at this level. Over time students will develop their abilities to handle more complex plots and write accordingly.

Popular Conflicts found in Children’s Storytelling.

  • Good vs evil
  • Individual vs society
  • Nature vs nurture
  • Self vs others
  • Man vs self
  • Man vs nature
  • Man vs technology
  • Individual vs fate
  • Self vs destiny

Conflict is the heart and soul of any good story. It’s what makes a story compelling and drives the plot forward. Without conflict, there is no story. Every great story has a struggle or a problem that needs to be solved, and that’s where conflict comes in. Conflict is what makes a story exciting and keeps the reader engaged. It creates tension and suspense and makes the reader care about the outcome.

Like in real life, conflict in a story is an opportunity for a character’s growth and transformation. It’s a chance for them to learn and evolve, making a story great. So next time stories are written in the classroom, remember that conflict is an essential ingredient, and without it, your story will lack the energy, excitement, and meaning that makes it truly memorable.

4. THE NARRATIVE CLIMAX: HOW THINGS COME TO A HEAD!

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The climax of the story is the dramatic high point of the action. It is also when the struggles kicked off by the problem come to a head. The climax will ultimately decide whether the story will have a happy or tragic ending. In the climax, two opposing forces duke things out until the bitter (or sweet!) end. One force ultimately emerges triumphant. As the action builds throughout the story, suspense increases as the reader wonders which of these forces will win out. The climax is the release of this suspense.

Much of the success of the climax depends on how well the other elements of the story have been achieved. If the student has created a well-drawn and believable character that the reader can identify with and feel for, then the climax will be more powerful.

The nature of the problem is also essential as it determines what’s at stake in the climax. The problem must matter dearly to the main character if it matters at all to the reader.

Have students engage in discussions about their favorite movies and books. Have them think about the storyline and decide the most exciting parts. What was at stake at these moments? What happened in your body as you read or watched? Did you breathe faster? Or grip the cushion hard? Did your heart rate increase, or did you start to sweat? This is what a good climax does and what our students should strive to do in their stories.

The climax puts it all on the line and rolls the dice. Let the chips fall where the writer may…

Popular Climax themes in Children’s Stories

  • A battle between good and evil
  • The character’s bravery saves the day
  • Character faces their fears and overcomes them
  • The character solves a mystery or puzzle.
  • The character stands up for what is right.
  • Character reaches their goal or dream.
  • The character learns a valuable lesson.
  • The character makes a selfless sacrifice.
  • The character makes a difficult decision.
  • The character reunites with loved ones or finds true friendship.

5. RESOLUTION: TYING UP LOOSE ENDS

After the climactic action, a few questions will often remain unresolved for the reader, even if all the conflict has been resolved. The resolution is where those lingering questions will be answered. The resolution in a short story may only be a brief paragraph or two. But, in most cases, it will still be necessary to include an ending immediately after the climax can feel too abrupt and leave the reader feeling unfulfilled.

An easy way to explain resolution to students struggling to grasp the concept is to point to the traditional resolution of fairy tales, the “And they all lived happily ever after” ending. This weather forecast for the future allows the reader to take their leave. Have the student consider the emotions they want to leave the reader with when crafting their resolution.

While the action is usually complete by the end of the climax, it is in the resolution that if there is a twist to be found, it will appear – think of movies such as The Usual Suspects. Pulling this off convincingly usually requires considerable skill from a student writer. Still, it may well form a challenging extension exercise for those more gifted storytellers among your students.

Popular Resolutions in Children’s Stories

  • Our hero achieves their goal
  • The character learns a valuable lesson
  • A character finds happiness or inner peace.
  • The character reunites with loved ones.
  • Character restores balance to the world.
  • The character discovers their true identity.
  • Character changes for the better.
  • The character gains wisdom or understanding.
  • Character makes amends with others.
  • The character learns to appreciate what they have.

Once students have completed their story, they can edit for grammar, vocabulary choice, spelling, etc., but not before!

As mentioned, there is a craft to storytelling, as well as an art. When accurate grammar, perfect spelling, and immaculate sentence structures are pushed at the outset, they can cause storytelling paralysis. For this reason, it is essential that when we encourage the students to write a story, we give them license to make mechanical mistakes in their use of language that they can work on and fix later.

Good narrative writing is a very complex skill to develop and will take the student years to become competent. It challenges not only the student’s technical abilities with language but also her creative faculties. Writing frames, word banks, mind maps, and visual prompts can all give valuable support as students develop the wide-ranging and challenging skills required to produce a successful narrative writing piece. But, at the end of it all, as with any craft, practice and more practice is at the heart of the matter.

TIPS FOR WRITING A GREAT NARRATIVE

  • Start your story with a clear purpose: If you can determine the theme or message you want to convey in your narrative before starting it will make the writing process so much simpler.
  • Choose a compelling storyline and sell it through great characters, setting and plot: Consider a unique or interesting story that captures the reader’s attention, then build the world and characters around it.
  • Develop vivid characters that are not all the same: Make your characters relatable and memorable by giving them distinct personalities and traits you can draw upon in the plot.
  • Use descriptive language to hook your audience into your story: Use sensory language to paint vivid images and sequences in the reader’s mind.
  • Show, don’t tell your audience: Use actions, thoughts, and dialogue to reveal character motivations and emotions through storytelling.
  • Create a vivid setting that is clear to your audience before getting too far into the plot: Describe the time and place of your story to immerse the reader fully.
  • Build tension: Refer to the story map earlier in this article and use conflict, obstacles, and suspense to keep the audience engaged and invested in your narrative.
  • Use figurative language such as metaphors, similes, and other literary devices to add depth and meaning to your narrative.
  • Edit, revise, and refine: Take the time to refine and polish your writing for clarity and impact.
  • Stay true to your voice: Maintain your unique perspective and style in your writing to make it your own.

NARRATIVE WRITING EXAMPLES (Student Writing Samples)

Below are a collection of student writing samples of narratives.  Click on the image to enlarge and explore them in greater detail.  Please take a moment to read these creative stories in detail and the teacher and student guides which highlight some of the critical elements of narratives to consider before writing.

Please understand these student writing samples are not intended to be perfect examples for each age or grade level but a piece of writing for students and teachers to explore together to critically analyze to improve student writing skills and deepen their understanding of story writing.

We recommend reading the example either a year above or below, as well as the grade you are currently working with, to gain a broader appreciation of this text type.

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NARRATIVE WRITING PROMPTS (Journal Prompts)

When students have a great journal prompt, it can help them focus on the task at hand, so be sure to view our vast collection of visual writing prompts for various text types here or use some of these.

  • On a recent European trip, you find your travel group booked into the stunning and mysterious Castle Frankenfurter for a single night…  As night falls, the massive castle of over one hundred rooms seems to creak and groan as a series of unexplained events begin to make you wonder who or what else is spending the evening with you. Write a narrative that tells the story of your evening.
  • You are a famous adventurer who has discovered new lands; keep a travel log over a period of time in which you encounter new and exciting adventures and challenges to overcome.  Ensure your travel journal tells a story and has a definite introduction, conflict and resolution.
  • You create an incredible piece of technology that has the capacity to change the world.  As you sit back and marvel at your innovation and the endless possibilities ahead of you, it becomes apparent there are a few problems you didn’t really consider. You might not even be able to control them.  Write a narrative in which you ride the highs and lows of your world-changing creation with a clear introduction, conflict and resolution.
  • As the final door shuts on the Megamall, you realise you have done it…  You and your best friend have managed to sneak into the largest shopping centre in town and have the entire place to yourselves until 7 am tomorrow.  There is literally everything and anything a child would dream of entertaining themselves for the next 12 hours.  What amazing adventures await you?  What might go wrong?  And how will you get out of there scot-free?
  • A stranger walks into town…  Whilst appearing similar to almost all those around you, you get a sense that this person is from another time, space or dimension… Are they friends or foes?  What makes you sense something very strange is going on?   Suddenly they stand up and walk toward you with purpose extending their hand… It’s almost as if they were reading your mind.

NARRATIVE WRITING VIDEO TUTORIAL

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Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

When teaching narrative writing, it is essential that you have a range of tools, strategies and resources at your disposal to ensure you get the most out of your writing time.  You can find some examples below, which are free and paid premium resources you can use instantly without any preparation.

FREE Narrative Graphic Organizer

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THE STORY TELLERS BUNDLE OF TEACHING RESOURCES

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A MASSIVE COLLECTION of resources for narratives and story writing in the classroom covering all elements of crafting amazing stories. MONTHS WORTH OF WRITING LESSONS AND RESOURCES, including:

NARRATIVE WRITING CHECKLIST BUNDLE

writing checklists

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES ABOUT NARRATIVE WRITING

narrative writing | Narrative2BWriting2BStrategies2Bfor2Bjuniors2B28129 | Narrative Writing for Kids: Essential Skills and Strategies | literacyideas.com

Narrative Writing for Kids: Essential Skills and Strategies

narrative writing | narrative writing lessons | 7 Great Narrative Lesson Plans Students and Teachers Love | literacyideas.com

7 Great Narrative Lesson Plans Students and Teachers Love

narrative writing | Top narrative writing skills for students | Top 7 Narrative Writing Exercises for Students | literacyideas.com

Top 7 Narrative Writing Exercises for Students

narrative writing | how to write a scary horror story | How to Write a Scary Story | literacyideas.com

How to Write a Scary Story

The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh.  A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane’s latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing , can be found here.  Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

How to Help Students With Their Writing. 4 Educators Share Their Secrets

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Teaching students to write is no easy feat, and it’s a topic that has often been discussed on this blog.

It’s also a challenge that can’t have too much discussion!

Today, four educators share their most effective writing lessons.

‘Three Practices That Create Confident Writers’

Penny Kittle teaches first-year writers at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She was a teacher and literacy coach in public schools for 34 years and is the author of nine books, including Micro Mentor Texts (Scholastic). She is the founder and president of the Book Love Foundation, which annually grants classroom libraries to teachers throughout North America:

I write almost every day. Like anything I want to do well, I practice. Today, I wrote about the wild dancing, joyful energy, and precious time I spent with my daughter at a Taylor Swift concert. Then I circled back to notes on Larry’s question about teaching writers. I wrote badly, trying to find a through line. I followed detours and crossed out bad ideas. I stopped to think. I tried again. I lost faith in my words. I will get there , I told myself. I trust my process.

I haven’t always written this easily or this much. I wouldn’t say I’m a “natural” writer because I don’t believe they exist. Writing is work. When I entered college, I received a C-minus on my first paper. I was stunned. I had never worked at writing: I was a “first drafter,” an “only drafter.” And truthfully, I didn’t know how or what to practice. I was assigned writing in high school and I completed it. I rarely received feedback. I didn’t get better. I didn’t learn to think like a writer; I thought like a student.

I’ve now spent 40 years studying writing and teaching writers in kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school, as well as teachers earning graduate degrees. Despite their age, writers in school share one remarkably similar trait: a lack of confidence. Confidence is a brilliant and fiery light; it draws your eyes, your heart, and your mind. But in fact, it is as rare as the Northern Lights. I feel its absence every fall in my composition courses.

We can change that.

Confidence blooms in classrooms focused on the growth of writers.

This happens in classrooms where the teacher relies less on lessons and more on a handful of practices. Unfortunately, though, in most classrooms, a heap of time is spent directing students to practice “writing-like” activities: restrictive templates for assignments, with detailed criteria focused on rules. Those activities handcuff writers. If you tell me what to do and how to do it, I will focus on either completing the task or avoiding it. That kind of writing work doesn’t require much thinking; it is merely labor.

Practice creating, on the other hand, is harder, but it is how we develop the important ability to let our ideas come and then shaping them into cohesive arguments, stories, poems, and observations. We have misunderstood the power of writing to create thinking. Likewise, we have misunderstood the limitations of narrow tasks. So, here are my best instructional practices that lead to confidence and growth in writers.

1. Writing Notebooks and Daily Revision. Writers need time to write. Think of it as a habit we begin to engage in with little effort, like serving a tennis ball from the baseline or dribbling a basketball or sewing buttonholes. Writers need daily time to whirl words, to spin ideas, to follow images that blink inside them as they move their pen across the page. In my classroom, writing time most often follows engagement with a poem.

Likewise, writers need guidance in rereading their first drafts of messy thinking. I’ve seen teachers open their notebooks and invite students to watch them shape sentences. They demonstrate how small revisions increase clarity and rhythm. Their students watch them find a focus and maintain it. Teachers show the effort and the joy of writing well.

Here’s an example: We listen to a beautiful poem such as “Montauk” by Sarah Kay, her tribute to growing up. Students write freely from lines or images that spring to them as they listen. I write in my notebook as students write in theirs for 4-5 minutes. Then I read my entry aloud, circling subjects and detours ( I don’t know why I wrote so much about my dog, but maybe I have more to say about this … ). I model how to find a focus. I invite students to do the same.

2. Writers Study Writing . Writers imitate structures, approaches, and ways of reaching readers. They read like writers to find possibilities: Look what the writer did here and here . A template essay can be an effective tool to write for a test, but thankfully, that is a very small and insignificant part of the whole of writing for any of us. Real writing grows from studying the work of other writers. We study sentences, passages, essays, and articles to understand how they work, as we create our own.

3. Writers Have Conversations as They Work . When writers practice the skills and embrace the challenges of writing in community, it expands possibilities. Every line read from a notebook carries the mark of a particular writer: the passion, the voice, the experiences, and the vulnerability of each individual. That kind of sharing drives process talk ( How did you think to write about that? Who do you imagine you are speaking to? ), which showcases the endless variation in writers and leads to “writerly thinking.” It shifts conversations from “right and wrong” to “how and why.”

Long ago, at a local elementary school, in a workshop for teachers, I watched Don Graves list on the chalkboard subjects he was considering writing about. He read over his list and chose one. From there, he wrote several sentences, talking aloud about the decisions he was making as a writer. Then he turned to accept and answer questions.

“Why do this?” someone asked.

“Because you are the most important writer in the room,” Don said. “You are showing students why anyone would write when they don’t have to.” He paused, then added, “If not you, who?”

confidenceblooms

Developing ‘Student Voice’

A former independent school English teacher and administrator, Stephanie Farley is a writer and educational consultant working with teachers and schools on issues of curriculum, assessment, instruction, SEL, and building relationships. Her book, Joyful Learning: Tools to Infuse Your 6-12 Classroom with Meaning, Relevance, and Fun is available from Routledge Eye on Education:

Teaching writing is my favorite part of being a teacher. It’s incredibly fun to talk about books with kids, but for me, it’s even more fun to witness students’ skills and confidence grow as they figure out how to use written language to communicate what they mean.

A lesson I used to like doing was in “voice.” My 8th graders had a hard time understanding what I meant when I asked them to consider “voice” in their writing. The best illustration I came up with was playing Taylor Swift’s song “Blank Space” for students. Some students groaned while others clapped. (Doesn’t this always happen when we play music for students? There’s no song that makes everyone happy!) But when they settled down, I encouraged them to listen to the style: the arrangement, her voice as she sang, the dominant instruments.

Then, I played a cover of “Blank Space” by Ryan Adams. Eyes rolled as the song unfurled through the speakers, but again I reminded students to listen to the arrangement, voice, and instruments. After about 60 seconds of the Adams version, heads nodded in understanding. When the music ended and I asked students to explain voice to me, they said it’s “making something your own … like your own style.” Yes!

The next step was applying this new understanding to their own writing. Students selected a favorite sentence from the books they were reading, then tried to write it in their own voice. We did this a few times, until everyone had competently translated Kwame Alexander into “Rosa-style” or Kelly Link into “Michael-style.” Finally, when it was time for students to write their own longer works—stories, personal essays, or narratives—they intentionally used the words and sentence patterns they had identified as their own voice.

I’m happy to report this method worked! In fact, it was highly effective. Students’ papers were more idiosyncratic, nuanced, and creative. The only change to this lesson I’d make now is trying to find a more zeitgeist-y song with the hope that the groans at the beginning die down a little faster.

itsfun

Teaching ELLs

Irina McGrath, Ph.D., is an assistant principal at Newcomer Academy in the Jefferson County school district in Kentucky and the president of KYTESOL. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Louisville, Indiana University Southeast, and Bellarmine University. She is a co-creator of the ELL2.0 site that offers free resources for teachers of English learners:

Reflecting on my experience of teaching writing to English learners, I have come to realize that writing can be daunting, especially when students are asked to write in English, a language they are learning to master. The most successful writing lessons I have taught were those that transformed the process into an enjoyable experience, fostering a sense of accomplishment and pride in my students.

To achieve this, I prioritized the establishment of a supportive learning environment. At the beginning of each school year, I set norms that emphasized the importance of writing for everyone, including myself as their teacher. I encouraged students to write in English and their native language and I wrote alongside my English learners to demonstrate that writing is a journey that requires hard work and dedication, regardless of age or previous writing experiences. By witnessing my own struggles, my students felt encouraged to persevere.

My English learners understood that errors were expected and that they were valuable opportunities for growth and improvement. This created a comfortable atmosphere where students felt more confident taking risks and experimenting with their writing. Rather than being discouraged by mistakes, they viewed them as steppingstones toward progress.

In my most effective writing lessons, I provided scaffolds such as sentence stems, sentence frames, and word banks. I also encouraged my students to use translation tools to help generate ideas on paper. These scaffolds empowered English learners to independently tackle more challenging writing assignments and nurtured their confidence in completing writing tasks. During writers’ circles, we discussed the hard work invested in each writing piece, shared our work, and celebrated each other’s success.

Furthermore, my most successful writing lessons integrated reading and writing. I taught my students to read like writers and utilized mentor texts to emulate the craft of established authors, which they could later apply to their own writing. Mentor texts, such as picture books, short stories, or articles, helped my students observe how professional writers use dialogue, sentence structure, and descriptive language to enhance their pieces.

Instead of overwhelming students with information, I broke down writing into meaningful segments and taught through mini lessons. For example, we analyzed the beginnings of various stories to examine story leads. Then, collaboratively, my students and I created several leads together. When they were ready, I encouraged them to craft their own leads and select the most appropriate one for their writing piece.

Ultimately, my most effective lessons were those in which I witnessed the joyful smiles on my English learners’ faces as they engaged with pages filled with written or typed words. It is during those moments that I knew my writers were creating and genuinely enjoying their work.

To access a self-checklist that students and EL teachers can use when teaching or creating a writing piece in English, you can visit the infographic at bit.ly/ABC_of_Writing .

iprovided

‘Model Texts’

Anastasia M. Martinez is an English-language-development and AVID Excel teacher in Pittsburg, Calif.:

As a second-language learner, writing in English had not always been my suit. It was not until graduate school that I immersed myself in a vast array of journals, articles, and other academic works, which ultimately helped me find my academic voice and develop my writing style. Now, working as an ESL teacher with a diverse group of middle school multilingual learners, I always provide a model text relevant to a topic or prompt we are exploring.

When students have a model text, it gives them a starting point for their own writing and presents writing as less scary, where they get stuck on the first sentence and do not know how to start.

At the start of the lesson, prior to using a model text, I create a “do now” activity that guides my students’ attention to the topic and creates a relevant context for the text. After students share their ideas with a partner and then the class, we transition to our lesson objectives, and I introduce the model text. We first use prereading strategies to analyze the text, and students share what they notice based on the title, images, and a number of paragraphs. Then, depending on the students’ proficiency level, I read the text to the class, or students read the text as partners, thinking about what the text was mostly about.

After students read and share their ideas with partners and then the whole class, we transition to deconstructing the text. These multiple reengagements with the text help students become more familiar with it, as well as help students build reading fluency.

When deconstructing the model text, I guide my students through each paragraph and sentence. During that time, students orally share their ideas determining the meaning of specific paragraphs or sentences, which we later annotate in the model text using different colored highlighters or pens. Color coding helps visually guide students through similar parts of the model text. For instance, if we highlight evidence in paragraph 2 in one color, we also highlight evidence in the same color in the following paragraph. It helps students see the similarities between the paragraphs and discover the skeleton of the writing. Additionally, color coding helps students during their writing process and revision. Students can check if they used all parts of the writing based on the colors.

Furthermore, one of the essential pieces during deconstructing model texts that I draw my students’ attention to is transition words and “big words,” or academic vocabulary. We usually box them in the text, and I question students about why the author used a particular word in the text. Later, when students do their own writing, they can integrate new vocabulary and transition words, which enhances their vocabulary and language skills.

As the next step, I invite students to co-create a similar piece of writing with a partner or independently using our model text as their guide. Later, our model text serves as a checklist for individual and partner revisions, which students could use to give each other feedback.

Model texts are an essential part of the writing process in any content-area class. As educators, we should embrace the importance of model texts, as they provide a solid foundation upon which students can develop their unique writing skills, tone, and voice.

modeltexts

Thanks to Penny, Stephanie, Irina, and Anastasia for contributing their thoughts!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email . And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 12 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list here .

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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IMAGES

  1. 6 Tips for Teaching First Grade Writing

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  2. Lessons and ideas for first and second grade students to share their

    how to teach creative writing to grade 1

  3. TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING by Razzle Dazzle Learning

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  4. Grade 1 Guided Writing Lesson

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  5. Creative Writing Grade 1

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  6. 5 Ideas for Teaching Creative Writing

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VIDEO

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  1. How to teach writing to Grade 1 kids: New strategies for teachers and

    How to teach writing to Grade 1 kids: New strategies for teachers and parents A new understanding of the importance of Grade 1 is beginning to change writing education. (Shutterstock)...

  2. Writing Activities for Your First Grader

    With first graders, you'll see a combination of invented and correct spelling (especially words from a word wall or vocabulary list). Early attempts at spelling are not the random swings they sometimes appear. Children's " invented spelling " gives us a window into what they understand about written language.

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    We've outlined a seven-step method that will scaffold your students through each phase of the creative process from idea generation through to final edits. 7. Create inspiring and original prompts. Use the following formats to generate prompts that get students inspired: personal memories ("Write about a person who taught you an important ...

  4. PDF How to Teach Creative Writing

    6 Ways to Teach Writing reatively Teach your students the fun aspects of writing. Students of all ages write short stories and papers, from younger elementary-school writers through college-age students.

  5. How to Teach Creative Writing (with Pictures)

    1 Introduce the important elements of storytelling. Great works of literature share elements across the genres. In order for your students to excel at creative writing, they need to know the fundamentals of storytelling. As a result, you need to spend some time focusing on the core elements of storytelling. Focus instruction time on teaching:

  6. Teaching Creative Writing

    On this page: The necessity of creative writing Suggestions for teaching story writing Giving feedback on children's writing Assessing student writing Publishing student writing Most children enter school with a natural interest in writing, an inherent need to express themselves in words (Graves, 1983).

  7. Creative Writing Lesson Plans: Week One

    1 Looking for creative writing lesson plans? I am developing creative writing lesson ideas! I've written and revamped my creative writing lesson plans and learned that the first week is vital in establishing a community of writers, in outlining expectations, and in working with a new class. What are some good creative writing exercises?

  8. How to Effectively Teach Creative Writing in Elementary

    Here's How to Teach a Creative Writing Activity to Elementary Students: 1. Start with Creative Writing Prompts. One of the first activities you can try is using writing prompts with students. Writing prompts are a great tool to get students' brain juices flowing, no matter if they are elementary, middle school, or high school students!

  9. Teaching Creative Writing

    Use these creative writing topics with elementary age students from kindergarten, first grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade students! Writing prompts for kids. Welcome to the world of creative writing for kids! Teaching creative writing can be an exciting and rewarding experience. You have the opportunity to unlock ...

  10. Tips for Teaching Narrative Writing to 1st Grade Students

    Tip #1: Read, Read, and Read Some More. Explaining how a story works, and what elements make up a story, is difficult to do without an example or two to point to. Reading narratives aloud together helps your 1st grade students develop an "ear" for sentence structure and the flow of a narrative while honing their reading and pronunciation ...

  11. 12 ideas for teaching creative writing

    Give your pupils freedom. Use story-starters and prompts. Elaborate with a story generator. Get the children to take creative writing home. 1. Use a workshop-style environment. Separate your class into groups or tables, each group will then be able to choose what they work on.

  12. Scaffolding Beginning Writers

    Scaffolding Beginning Writers Scaffolding Beginning Writers We are 14 days into school (woohoo) and I wanted to share some of the ways I'm supporting my very-beginning writers. One of the best parts of 1st grade is seeing the amazing growth students make in 9 short months.

  13. 1st Grade How To Writing

    Launching Workshop After a few hands-on experiences with how-to writing, my writers were ready to launch Workshop with how-to writing. This is typically how I run my writing block as it gives students lots of time to generate ideas and write about their own interests! Just like narrative writing, we start with a brainstorming map.

  14. Looking at Writing: First Grade

    Classroom strategies Graphic organizers and other downloadables Informal assessment Learn more about writing in first grade First graders write many times a day to express their ideas and interests — they are writing with a purpose, through, stories, letters, and lists. They can print clearly and leave spaces between words.

  15. Teaching Beginning of Year First Grade Writing Has Never Been Easier

    2. Engage students in a Writing Chat activity. Some lessons begin with a Writing Chat. The purpose of a Writing Chat is to introduce a new writing concept, develop vocabulary, and build background knowledge for students. 3. Engage Students in the "Watch Me" activity. This is where the explicit teaching happens.

  16. How to Writing in First Grade

    Publishing: When it is publishing time, my students choose one of their writing pieces to edit/revise and turn into their own book! Along with these steps there is plenty more in the how-to unit I created: You can grab all this and more in my How To Writing unit below:

  17. Preparing young students to write a story #1

    Presenting the story. Using your chosen story sample from above, present to the class the title and some images from the story. If you are using an actual book as an example. start the presentation with the title as well as the cover. Encourage the class to be imaginative- ask the children to predict what the story is going to be about.

  18. A Step-by-Step Plan for Teaching Narrative Writing

    Step 2: Study the Structure of a Story. Now that students have a good library of their own personal stories pulled into short-term memory, shift your focus to a more formal study of what a story looks like. Use a diagram to show students a typical story arc like the one below.

  19. How to Teach Writing

    Teach students to treat self-editing as a separate stage in the writing process. get students reading in the genre they'll be writing; e.g., if they're writing poetry, encourage them to read a lot of poems. help students learn to trust their own perspectives and observations, to believe that they have something interesting to say.

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    A narrative can spark emotion, encourage reflection, and convey meaning when done well. Narratives are a popular genre for students and teachers as they allow the writer to share their imagination, creativity, skill, and understanding of nearly all elements of writing. We occasionally refer to a narrative as 'creative writing' or story writing.

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    Context of writing. A first grade girl wrote this story. After reading William Steig's Amos and Boris, students were prompted to write a story with an unlikely friendship between two animal characters. This is an unfinished piece; the author added more to the story after this sample was gathered.

  22. PDF Using flashcards for English second language creative writing in Grade 1

    the classroom when teaching learners creative writing skills. 'Children begin Grade 1 by "writing" using pictures but as they master the skills of letter formation they can start to copy individual words, captions and full sentences' (Department of Education 2011:18). In Grade 1, creative writing is entry-level story writing,

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